


At Last His Grace

by DeathjunkE



Series: The Gift of Grace [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - BDSM, Gen, Identity Issues, Impact Play, M/M, Mentions of attempted rape, Multi, Nipple Play, Power Play, Rope Bondage, no angels despite the title, society sucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-18
Updated: 2012-11-18
Packaged: 2017-11-18 23:20:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 26,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/566410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeathjunkE/pseuds/DeathjunkE
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean is a sub who has been pretending to be a Dom his entire life, not even his family knows the truth. Dean's seen what the world has been like for his father since Mary died and doesn't want to be limited by his dynamic. He's strong, he takes care of his family, he hunts things that go bump in the night and saves people. Dean's protector, he doesn't need or want to be protected he wants to live his life and not worry about what society thinks he should be doing/not doing.</p><p>Eventually Sam finds out and tries to make Dean see that being himself, sub and all, isn't a bad thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mom and Dad (Mary and John)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [this prompt](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/13703) by anon. 



> **Notes:**  
>  Many thanks to my wonderfully supportive artist, lylithj2.  
> And the beta who made this readable and stopped my abuse of the English language, jonjokeat.
> 
> The illustrations for this story can be found here:  
> http://lylithj2.livejournal.com/49811.html

**Mom and Dad (Mary and John)**

 

On their wedding day she had surprised the hell out of him when she fastened his collar and took his name instead of giving him her own. That day he couldn’t stop smiling; he smiled so much his face hurt for two days after. She had laid official claim to him, he would always be hers, but at the same time she made sure that she would always be his. 

John had never once in his youth thought that he'd be proud to be a Winchester (a long line of drunken, traditionalist, mechanics, was all he could ever associate the name with) but when Mary took the name John had thought nothing could make him love her more.

[ ](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/lylithj2/23967405/21923/21923_original.jpg)

"John!" Mary snapped, she was already aggravated, but really, this just took the cake. "You said you'd be home by four. It is now ten thirty. No call, no heads up, no nothing. I called the shop and you weren't there— I'm having fits and you call me from the county lock up!"

Dean looked up at his mother as she all but snarled into the receiver. There were certain times you stayed quiet and other times where it was okay to make noise. This, Dean knew, was a time to stay quiet.

"Baby come here, let Momma get you ready." Mary scrubbed one hand down her face and pulled her son's denim jacket off of the coat rack with the other. "We've got to go pick up your Daddy."

"'Kay." The child mumbled as he held out his arms.

"You're such a good boy." Mary praised and kissed her son on his plump little cheek, "You are always ready to help Momma, thank you Dean."

Mary felt her heart melt as she watched a genuinely happy smile bloom across her son's face. The slightest praise lit up her boy's face like the sun lit up the sky. It was easy to see he'd be the sweetest of subs when he grew up. As much as Dean looked like her he was going to take after his Daddy, Sub down to his bones —not that you'd know it by looking at him. 

Mary swept up her hair into a neat bun, slid on her own jacket and toted her son out of the house and into the car.

[ ](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/lylithj2/23967405/21923/21923_original.jpg)

John grimaced as two of the guards came to the cell bars. One looked him over in a way that was strongly reminiscent of the way lions looked at injured antelope out on the savannah, and the other was clearly uncomfortable with John being in a cell at all. People who got arrested were kept in holding cells until they were allowed to leave and collared subs were not allowed to leave on their own, they had to be picked up by their Dom.

"Hey darlin', you alright?" The second one called.

John rolled his eyes and stayed exactly where he was. They knew his name, hell they’d used it before he took off his jacket to be frisked and they’d caught sight of his collar. After that they were treating him with kid gloves, even gave him his own cell instead of putting him in with Mike and the others. He didn’t need to be coddled. He was a United States Marine, a Corporal at that. Had Mary not told him she was pregnant with Dean, he'd have reenlisted and made Sergeant in no time.

"Your Dom allow you to talk to other Doms when he's not around? If not we can find an officer who is a Sub to handle any interactions or-"

_Better to just answer their stupid questions before they drag some poor bastard away from his work._ John swung his legs to the floor and sat up on the bench he had been sprawled across. "Don't trouble yourself, officers." He'd be goddamn if he were calling one of these ass hats 'Sir'. You earned that shit. "I called my Dom already."

The officers nodded and drifted down the corridors. 

"Shit Johnny, I'm sorry. It was just supposed to be a bit of a celebration. “Mike called from the holding cell across from his own. There were about eight people in there with him. "It certainly wasn't supposed to turn out like this. If you want I'll explain it to Mary."

"Nah, don’t worry." John waved off his friend's concern, it wasn't like he didn't deserve every moment of whatever Mary decided was the penalty for this. "I knew what I was getting in to."

"And what exactly was that, pray tell?"

John's attention was snapped from Mike to the first officer and his wife, who were now standing there. John took a good look at his wife and slid slowly and gracefully to his knees. Mary was lovely with her sunshine blonde hair pulled back, green eyes blazing, her face set in a wicked scowl. Dean was on her hip, the boy leaning against his mother as he drowsed in and out of consciousness. 

John glanced at the clock on the wall and internally groaned, it was so far past Dean's bedtime that he'd be impossible to deal with tomorrow. 

"Stand up and take your son, John." Mary handed her son over to her husband and then fished a thin gold chain from her purse. She clipped one end to the bracelet she wore of her left wrist and took the other end in hand and attached it swiftly to John's collar. "Mike, John will be leaving the shop at 4:30 from now on. No later."

"Alright… not an issue. But really Mary, just give me a moment to tell you this isn't John's fault—"

"Goodnight, Mike." Mary said, simply dismissing the other top and his excuses. She turned on her heel and began walking. John followed two steps behind and to her left.

[ ](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/lylithj2/23967405/21923/21923_original.jpg)

John Winchester was many things: he was a marine, a man, a mechanic, a husband, a father and a sub. But as of right now, no bones about it, he was in trouble. Mary hadn't looked at him since they left the precinct and it was making him very uncomfortable.

John shifted his dozing son in his arms and headed up the stairs to put the child to bed. Looking down at his little son, John sighed, as much as he didn't want to go down stairs and face his angry wife he knew he was going to.

John stood at the threshold of the kitchen watching his wife as she sat at the table watching him. Mary's chin was propped up on her palm and she placidly watched him. They just stayed there watching each other for a few moments before John took a deep breath, heeled off his boots and walked into the room. John came to Mary's chair, slipped to his knees gracefully, and laced his fingers behind his head. He maintained his posture —back straight, arms in a perfect line even though they started to feel heavy and ache.

"Four o’clock," Mary leaned back in her chair and eyed John, he didn't meet her eyes this time simply keeping his gaze on the floor. "I expected you to come home from work at four so we could all go out to dinner and break the news to Dean about the baby. Instead you never showed, I never got a call. Dean and I went down to the garage to get you but it was already locked up and Tracey said you all headed for the bar to get drinks. And okay, that was annoying yeah, but I know how Mike and the rest of them are—you probably told them I was pregnant and they dragged you off to celebrate. Am I right?"

John nodded, then caught himself and licked his lips, "Yes, Ma'am."

"Mmmhmm. I figured, but getting into a bar fight and starting a riot?" Mary reached down and gripped John's hair tightly and tipped his head up towards her, "How do you explain that John?"

"There was a guy, he didn't know when to back off. We were playing pool and he got too close, then his hand was on my ass so I hit him with the pool cue." Mary nodded acceptingly and tugged at his hair again, meaning him to finish the story, "His friend was pissed off at me. Claimed it was a mistake, but I don’t believe that. He wanted me to apologize and when I wouldn't he told Mike to do something about me." John's tone was sharp; anyone could tell even thinking of that conversation irritated him. "The guy who’d grabbed my ass said skip the apology he'd take it out in trade… So I hit him again and it all went south from there."

"So the thought of _not_ hitting this asshole never occurred to you? There were so many ways this could have been handled. He shouldn't have touched you yes, but you could have spoken to the guy, let Mike or any of the other Doms you work with act as a mediator or just about anything but break the guy’s nose and cheekbones?"

John looked away sheepishly and shrugged.

"Apparently we need to work on impulse control, being home on time, calling if you're running late and alternative problem solving." 

John breathed deeply as the fingers in his hair stopped pulling and started petting. Yeah, he had a feeling life would suck for a bit but well it's not like he didn't deserve it. 

"First things first, impulsive behavior. No alcohol, none, not even beer, for 5 weeks. Don’t huff like that. It's a week for every bone you broke in that guy's face. I also want a five page essay on alternative ways that situation could have been handled by Sunday night. Last but not least you're to be home by 5:00 every day, don’t make me have to penalize you for tardiness. It won’t be pleasant."

"Yes, Ma’am," John muttered and leaned his forehead against Mary's thigh, wishing that he was one of those subs who didn't like pain so he could just get a spanking as a punishment instead of these long drawn out tortures. Good God, an essay! He had been bad at them back when he was in school but now that it had so much more riding on it than a grade…

At least Mary didn't decide to make him eat only oatmeal for three days. That had been truly the worst punishment John had ever endured. He hated oatmeal and he hated it even more when it was the only meal he had to look forward to.


	2. A Man Alone

**A Man Alone**

"Dean's always been one of those kids," Daddy told Uncle Bobby one night, "He picks up on everything; moods, conversations, things people don’t say…"

Uncle Bobby laughed a little; it was a rough warm sound that made Dean want to settle close to Sammy again and close his eyes. Dean tilted his head a bit so that he could see into the kitchen from his spot on the sofa. There was clinking of glass against glass then a low hiss.

"It drove Mary spare. She was never one to swear over much, but she turned everything into a raunchy joke. She always grumbled about how she had to go so far out of her way to censor herself so that Dean wouldn’t hear things that were inappropriate for a kid. She slipped more often than not, it was an interesting few weeks when Dean's favorite word was fuck." Daddy's laugh wasn't quite right. "I never told her that I was the one Dean picked it up from, stubbed my toe in the nursery and it slipped out he repeated it right after. I never told her either"

Uncle Bobby's laugh turned into coughs. Then Dean heard the clinking of bottles again, overlaid with rough chuckles.

"Pshh, my old man would've had me ass up for that one. He was a traditionalist." 

Uncle Bobby made a strange sound, halfway between a grunt and a hum, "A 'sub's shouldn't' man, I take it?"

"That's a nice way to put it. He was a fucking chauvinist. I couldn't talk to or even _look_ at a Dom without his permission, sent me and my brother Denny to service school, and made sure we knew to sew, cook and clean and everything else a house Sub from the 1920's would know. Shit man, it was ridiculous. I had never left the house without a chaperone and a veil, until the day I ran off and joined The Marines."

"Honestly, I'm surprised they let you in. Most recruiters will turn subs away."

Sammy stirred, pressing closer against Dean's chest. The older boy hiked the blanket that had been thrown over them, up a bit to cover Sam more. Sammy was ‘nee-mick’ and needed to be kept warm. The doctor said so. Dean shifted so his arm was around the toddler's back and settled down to listen once more.

"I lied on the paperwork, said I was a Switch . Didn't last long once I was on the island. Halfway through training they pulled up my school records, saw the little blue 's' next to my sex. The Gunny knew I fucked up but he didn’t report it, he just left the room while I forged my old man's signature on the permission forms. 

It wasn't all that bad, the other guys made passes every now and again, but they backed off easy enough. No one was stupid enough to try to protect me, I was doing all the same drills they were, they knew I was just as good as them. The only real problem was the C.O.s out of bootcamp. Damn near all of them thought that subs shouldn't leave their parents house unless it was with a collar around their necks. Made it hell to get out there and do my fucking job, but I managed."

"Meaning you disobeyed orders, did as you pleased and let your C.O. strap your ass afterwards."

Daddy's laugh was loud and real the way it hadn't been for so long, "Yup."

Dean was going to fourth grade this year. Sammy was going to kindergarten.  
They were going to be in different classes but at the same school, so that was okay. The principal's office was nice. The windows were big and looked out onto the school's playground, the walls were painted superman blue and there was the rug in the corner of the room. There were blocks, two coloring books and crayons and a few stuffed toys on it. 

Dean held tight to Sammy's hand as they sat down on the sofa next to Daddy. It was a rule, they had to stay next to Daddy unless he said they didn't have to, but sometimes Sammy forgot because he was so little. 

The lady who had stood on the other side of the desk smiled at them, "You two can go play with the things over there. Those are for our students to use while we talk to their parents."

Dean looked up at his father and waited until he saw the small nod that was silent permission. Sammy was already starting to wiggle down from the couch tugging Dean's hand impatiently. Sammy threw himself into playing like everything he did, whole-heartedly and with enthusiasm. 

Dean only half listened to Sammy's chatter about the tower he was going to build, and why couldn't they have blocks like this in the Impala? He was paying more attention to what the grown ups were saying.

"Hello. I'm the principal, Eliza Faire. How can I help you today Mr. Winchester?" she asked smiling politely, her eyes fixed the golden braid at Daddy's throat, the collar that Dean had never seen his father remove, even now after 5 years since the fire. "Is your Dom or Domme available? Usually we like for the dominant parent to be present for these meetings."

"No, no. She died five years ago." He whispered in a hoarse broken voice that made Dean's stomach burn. 

"My apologies, Mr. Winchester."

"Look, we've just moved here and I want to enroll my boys before the school year begins. Dean's supposed to be going into to fourth grade. We've moved around a lot but he should be on the level with his age group, we've supplemented everything with workbooks. Sammy is going to start school for the first time. And I heard that this school had a good advanced program, he can read already, English and Latin just like Dean. He still gets his numbers mixed up though. Can he still test for that or is the deadline up?"

The principal took her seat and gestured for John to do the same, "Well we can have your boys take the placement tests on Thursday. What program did you have them… What program were they in previously? I don’t know any schools or daycares that teach Latin so early."

"Dean and Sam have never been to daycare. I kept them with me. The Latin they know is mostly Church Latin, just about every city has a large Catholic church that does Latin mass."

"Can they speak it as well?"

"Sam can, Dean… I don’t know. He understands it I know but he hasn't spoken since the fire."

"Will he need an ASL translator? Or any special services, we have a few speech pathologists here to help some of our hearing impaired children?"

"No. no, he'll be fine. The doctors said to give him time, but don’t make it easier for him to stay quiet. He wrote out his answers in all the other schools, he can do that here as well."

Dean's face flushed red and he chewed his lip as he fingered some of the blocks. It wasn’t like he’d decided that he wasn’t going to speak ever again. It was just that he couldn't, he tried but nothing ever came out.

"Ah well… alright then." Ms. Faire nodded and shifted the papers on her desk before continuing. "Let me tell you more about the school then. Here at the Peach Groves Elementary we…" 

Dean turned his attention fully on Sam, not wanting to hear about the school any longer. They'd stay for a few months and then they'd be off again. Just like every other time. Dean pulled a coloring book over and filled in a page with a roaring T-Rex until he heard his Dad calling him and Sammy over. 

Only when the toys were put back in their place and Sammy bundled up in his winter things, did Dean start on his own jacket and scarf. He watched with a wary eye as his father slipped into his own jacket. More often than not Dean had to remind his father to put on his scarf too.

"Mr. Winchester, it was a pleasure meeting you." Ms. Faire said as she held the door open for the little family.

 

 

That night Dean laid in the foot well of the back seat, Sammy pressed close to his side. Blankets and duffels were hiding them from sight while John shouted at the Child Protective Service agents who were harassing him to let them into the room so that they could remove the kids from the unstable environment.

Somewhere between leaving Arkansas and Carolina, John was pretty sure he had lost his goddamn mind. 

They'd been on the road for so long and there was only so much time he could realistically expect two kids under ten to sit in a car without fighting and whining. John pulled the car into a shitty little motel with a vacancy sign. He took the key from the sleazy desk clerk who couldn’t stop staring at his collar and went back to the car to get his kids and their bags and bundled them into the dingy little room. 

John sat on the corner of the bed and dug through his large duffel pulling out the sheets and towels he kept in there for flea bag places like this, put the sheets aside and handed the washcloths and towels to Dean with instructions to get ready for bed. Sammy whined and complained even as he followed Dean into the bathroom. 

John made quick work of securing the room, in grease pencil he detailed wards on each of the four walls, on the window sill and above the door before spilling lines of salt across everywhere a demon might slink in; doors, windows, ventilation grates and cracks in the plaster. Once the room was secure John peered into the bathroom to see the familiar sight of Dean peeling off both his, and Sammy's clothes with toothbrushes shoved in their mouths.

Pulling of the smelly sex stained sheets and covering off the bed, John remade it with the pristine blue sheets he'd unpacked. . This would be enough for the night. Dean didn’t move much at night and Sammy liked to curl up to who ever could keep him the warmest. 

"You two brushed your teeth and got undressed already?"

"Yes!" Sam chirruped from the doorway, as pink and naked as the day he was born. "You're taking too long!"

John couldn’t help but grin as he pulled his shirts over his head. "You two wait for me. I'll see if the tub is clean and I'll turn on the water, I don’t want you getting burned."

"Okay."

Just as Sammy turned and went back into the bathroom the door of the room creaked open. John turned startled, pulling the bathroom door shut and reaching back into his waistband for his Glock hoping and praying that this wasn’t yellow eyes coming for his boys when they were all so unprepared.

John wasn't sure what disturbed him more; the fact that the creepy, 100% human clerk had taken it upon himself to come into the room unannounced with wanting either to rob, kill or rape him or the fact that he was relieved to see that it was just the fucking clerk with the keycard and a knife. 

The stupid fuck lunged at John never expecting to get shot in the knees. 

As the slimy bastard screamed and clutched at his knee with a trembling hand, John leveled the gun at the man's face, pressing his foot onto the wounded knee and slowly, oh so slowly put more and more pressure on it. "Listen here you sorry son of a bitch…"

"Daddy?"

John turned to see his youngest poking his head out of the bathroom door only to be yanked back as abruptly as he’d appeared and the door slammed shut again. Dean’s work , no doubt.

"You are so lucky my kids are here you sick fuck, I'd have left you to bleed out and die if it was just me." The pissant just whimpered and shit his pants. John chuckled darkly and shot him right through his other knee. Leaving the man to shriek in pain again as he sauntered over to the phone. 

John called emergency services and smirked all the while informing the dispatcher that a man had come into his motel room with a knife and exactly how he incapacitated him and how he'd kill him soon if the local LEOs didn't come get him first. That lit a fire under the collective ass of the police force. There were four cops and an EMT at the motel in less than five minutes and John walked away as they were loading the clerk into the ambulance.

"Sir, we need a statement." A young cop with dark hair, light eyes and a lovely silver collar at his neck, was holding a clipboard and pen at the ready.

John raised an eyebrow at the form of address. People generally called him Mister, reserving Sir exclusively for Doms. "And my kids need me to go back in there and run a bath so if you'll excuse me officer." 

"Would you rather talk to an officer who is also a dom?" The officer —Langley his badge read— said stiffly and with way too much politeness.

 

"Look kid, it’s got nothing to do with you. You're doing your job and I'm not going to not let you do it because you got a collar around your neck. My boys were getting ready for a bath when this all happened. They're still in the bathroom waiting for me to come in and wash them up so they can go to bed."

Langley flushed from the neck up, even his ears turning red in embarrassment, "I'm so sorry. It's… people don’t take me seriously on the job. Doms think I'd be better off in a different field or being taken care of, while my Dom works. Most of the times subs won’t talk to me because they think I'm trying to be a Dom." The officer let out a slow breath and wiped his sleeve across his mouth. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t make judgments like that. I just want to do my job and got a bit…" 

"I know, trust me I do." John clapped a hand on the officer's shoulder, raising his head to remind the younger man that he wore a collar of his own. "I'll be out in twenty minutes. You wait for me to get the boys in bed and I'll give you my statement." Officer Langley nodded and busied himself with getting forensics to photograph the blood splatter on the carpet.

When John finally had the tub clean, and the water running Sammy was propped up against the side of the tub, already asleep. Dean was just about dead on his feet too. The three of them bathed together. It was a quick affair before the boys were tucked into the bed, John leaning over them to press his lips against their foreheads— a customary goodnight kiss. 

"I've got to go talk to the police officers now, but don’t worry I'll be right outside the door. I'll come to bed soon alright." Dean didn't nod, he just watched with those large green eyes and John felt like an utter shit for leaving him there in bed even though it was necessary.

 

 

 

Two hours of repeating the same story to three different people, EMTs offering to give him a check up at every turn and an obnoxious Sergeant who refused to deal with a Sub unless his Dom was present had taken its toll. John was irritated and exhausted when he stumbled blindly back into the room. He pulled off the clothes he had been wearing leaving them in a pile on the floor before sliding into bed with a long, relieved sigh. He threw an arm over his boys and pulled them closer.

"You 'kay?"

John's eyes snapped from Sammy's sleeping face up to Dean's wide green eyes as what had just happened dawned on him. It was hard not to make a big deal out of it, it was the first time he had heard his son's voice in five years, but somehow John pushed down the elation. John threaded his fingers through Dean's fine blonde hair and smiled gently, "I will be."


	3. Family

**Family**

Dad still wore his collar.

It wasn't as bright or shiny as it had been when Mom was alive but it was still there. A solid presence, for all he had lost and all he still had.

Dean remembered how happy they were when they were basking in each other's presence. Dad would sit on the floor at Mom's feet and rest his head on her lap so that she could thread her fingers through his hair and rub his shoulders. A few times a year Dad would kneel and wait for mom to affix a second simple leather collar to his neck and take away the golden one.

The days that Dad had the black leather collar around his neck he didn't leave the house and wasn't quite himself. Sure, he was still Daddy. The man who smiled all the time and would lay on the floor and let Dean roll his trucks and trains up and down his arms and face, the perfect grown up who put pickles in grilled cheese and let Dean eat banana cream pie for lunch but on the black collar days there was a quietness to him that Dean didn't quite understand.

But like clockwork two days after the black collar was put on Dad's neck, it would come off and the golden one was back in place looking shiny and new as ever. And Dean would sit on his Daddy's lap and finger the gold rope with awe wondering when he'd get one of his own.

Now Dean didn't wonder. He didn't bother with daydreaming about his collar or the day some amazing Dom would ask his father, or maybe even Uncle Bobby if they were real traditional and would only approach another Dom for permission to collar him. He was fourteen with responsibilities and too much on his plate to worry about Doms.

Hell, he was more worried about his father and kid brother.

It had taken years for Dean to realize that Dad would never be the same as before. He would never come back from Mom's death. This crusade for the demon that killed his wife was dragging him to places Dean didn't want to even think of. Dad was gone more often than not these days. Following leads, he said. 

And when Dad came home from a hunt he was more of a Drill Sergeant than a dad. When the sun was down and there were no more laps to run, targets to shoot, dead languages to learn, sets of crunches and pull ups and sit ups to do, he was drunk off his ass. Dad said that the liqueur helped ease the pain in his hands that would always be scarred and aching. He never had to tell Dean that his hands were wrecked because he had reached up into the flames to pull Mary, so beautiful, bright and flaming from the ceiling. Dad's love for his mother was fierce and unyielding, something Dean had always known.

And then there was Sammy. 

Sammy had been a baby when the fire devoured their old lives. With Dad's hands burned so badly and immobile in their bandages Dean had to learn to change diapers, heat milk and quiet down his little brother. When the bandages fell away and physical therapy was over, Sammy was a year and a half old and learning how to use the potty and Dean was learning how to open cans and boxes and cut food into pieces small enough to give Sammy.

When Sammy was little things were easier, he wanted to do everything big brother did and would do what Dean wanted him to with barely a question. When Sam was tired or fussy Dean would pick him up and sort out whatever the issue was himself. But now Sam was ten. He was smart, independent, charming, and sweet, with a thirst for knowledge. But he was also stubborn, cheeky, disobedient and attracted to danger like a moth to a flame. 

But Sammy was a kid after all and sometimes, no matter how good they are, kids misbehave. Dean did his best to manage his little brother; there were conversations, time outs, groundings; early bedtimes and running laps. And though that often worked, more and more Sam would dig his heels in and bare his teeth, or run off into the night disappearing for hours at a time leaving Dean frantic and scared. 

Dean didn't know what to do when that happened. 

If he told Dad then there was yelling. Yelling never worked because Sammy would yell back just as loud and just as fiercely. Dad wouldn't spank Sammy because for all he tried to leave the stereotypical trappings of a Sub behind, some remnants from his childhood remained. One of them being that it wasn't a sub's place to discipline, and so Dean took it upon himself to learn to do that too.

Aside from family there was the hunt. The things that went bump in the night and gobbled up children and killed parents, needed dealing with and weren't going to hunt themselves. There were stakeouts, wardings, battles, graves to dig up, rituals to perform, research out the wazoo and the constant shifting roles, places and identities. 

Courting wasn't feasible, practical or possible. Not when you had to pack up and leave at a moments notice, not when you were practically a teenage parent, not when there wasn't the time to really get to know a person or tell them your real name. Besides, there wasn't a Dom alive that would be okay with their Sub going off to wage war with the beasts of the dark.

Out in the world, away from the hunt, Submissives were precious. Subs were to be kept safe and protected, to be taken care of and honored. That was the philosophy, anyway. 

Now it just seemed like the chivalries of a time long gone were perverted into this societal clusterfuck. It was frustrating for Dean to see how Subs were treated. How parents locked their submissive children up in chastity belts or cages and had strict rules and guidelines. How, although there was supposed to be equal opportunity for jobs, Doms were almost always picked over submissive applicants. How Subs were expected to be wilting flowers or doormats and not strong and independent people who were every bit as capable as a Dom. How he noticed the way his father had to work twice as hard for anything and everything, just because he used to kneel for the love of his life and wore her collar proudly. 

John Winchester wore that golden collar even now, ten years after her death — his devotion unshakeable and absolute.


	4. Dean and Ms Palm and her 5 sisters

**Dean and Ms Palm and her 5 sisters**

Dean didn't really know what was going on the first time it happened. Yeah the older boys made crude gestures and allusions but Dean had never been a part of those cliques. Sammy was barely eight and Dad… he didn’t want to ask Dad.

When Dean woke up with his cock too heavy and hard to take a morning piss he leaned against the bathroom door and waited how ever long for it to become soft enough for him to pee. It went on like this for quite some time, but then one morning despite waiting for almost half an hour Dean's cock just wouldn't relax. 

It twitched and strained and it throbbed like it was swollen or something. With a gentle hand Dean reached down and inhaled sharply when his fingers brushed the head. Dean took a deep breath steadied himself and wrapped his hand around his cock, marveling at how different it felt like this. The skin was still the same velvety soft but it was firmer, stiffer and his hand felt glorious against it. The pressure that had been driving him insane had transmuted into intense pleasure when he wrapped his fingers firmly around it.

From there it was all instinct. 

Dean pulled gently at first, then rougher and tighter until his breath caught in his throat and he heard his heart beat in his ears. 

When Dean looked down there was a sticky stringy stuff in his hand. 

Using his clean hand Dean turned on the shower climbed in and started to rub at his cock again.

Erections, stiffies, hard-ons or boners, as it turned out they were called, became difficult for Dean to deal with. They came on suddenly and without much warning, with no regard for Dean's surroundings or the availability of a bathroom.

Finding time to jerk off was next to impossible with Dad and Sammy around. It seemed like there was always something to do or someone who needed to pee just as Dean stepped into the bathroom. Living in motel rooms and apartments where he had to share a room with Sammy, and sometimes Dad too, was driving him mad and made alone time scarce. Somehow Dean managed to finagle some alone time for him self. And if it coincided with when Dad was out working or following leads on cases and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Power hour… well no one would really blame him. 

Once Sammy was thoroughly entrenched in the hidden world of the New York City subways that were filled with six foot tall turtles and kung fu master rats, Dean locked the bathroom door, turned on the shower and shoved his hands down his pants. 

Dean sat on the toilet and used his fingertips to tease himself to hardness. The lightest of touches to the ridge of his glands made his breath catch deep in his chest and rubbing a nail up along the underside's vein made his eyes flutter shut. Dean worked himself up teasing and touching until his cock was weighted and bobbing up towards his stomach full and flushed pink. When Dean's cock head was colored and glistening he reached further down palming his balls. Dean had taken to rolling them between his fingers at first, they were soft and warm and the more he touched them the better they felt; heavy and so very, very full. Dean maneuvered them gently at first, careful of their delicacy before he slowly got rougher, squeezing them and increasing his grip until they began to ache and sting. After that it didn't take Dean long until he felt the warm slick dribble from his cock trail down his shaft and fingers. 

That's when the real fun started. One hand holding his balls and the other on his cock, he doubled over and worked himself as best he could, his tight testicles squeezed in time with the pumps of his hand until he had to bite down on his lip to stop himself from groaning.

In the shower Dean closed his eyes and tipped his head back as the hot water washed away his spunk. Dean snatched the bar of soap from the ledge and started to scrub himself down. It was jarring for Dean to realize that masturbation had become routine and uninteresting now. It was nothing more than a part of his morning shower, and on some level Dean found that that just didn’t sit right with him.

"Fuck, Bobby." John said one night when they thought Dean and Sam were all tucked up safe in bed. "Just… just help me scratch the itch."

"You mean all this time?"

"I ain't a saint… I have just… it was only sex nothing else." John's lips thinned as he recalled whatever encounters he’d had, according to the look on his face they were clearly unsatisfactory. "I don’t like feeling like a cheap fuck. When it was Mary it was something special, I know I'm not going to have that again but I just need… I need to wake up next to some one who's name I know."

"Is this just a fuck you're wanting or something more?"

"I need more." John was quick to answer, "Soreness, bruises something to hold on to… Can you do that?"

"It's not my ideal, but I can."

"What's your ideal, Bobby?"

"Edging, knife play, humiliation." Bobby gulped down half of his beer and pulled it away to examine the bottle. "I used to spread Karen wide for me and make her watch in the mirror as I fingered her and made her beg. Oh she could beg, filthy mouth on her too, she'd be bright red and promising such sweet things if I'd only give her more, fuck her, let her come." 

John bobbed his head in an understanding nod. "Mary didn't care for begging. If I begged I got punished, she'd stop everything, roll over and go to sleep. Made me pissed as hell; but I learned to shut the fuck up and take what I was given."

"Fuck," Bobby chuckled at the thought, "She was that kind of hardass?"

"She was… Hell. I needed her to be, even if I didn't realize it at the time." John lowered his eyes to the table and grinned wide and bashful, with dimples and all. Cheeky sonuvabitch. 

Suddenly the resemblance between Sam and John was just so obvious that Bobby had to wrap his lips around his beer to keep from laughing. The late Mrs. Winchester had certainly had her hands full, John was one charming sonuvabitch when he wasn't being an ass, and good looking to boot. The fact that he could work those brown eyes just as good as, if not better than Sammy… She must've been some kind of woman. 

"I'm masochistic to a pretty extreme point. I'm not very good at knowing when I need to stop. It all feels so intense, so good and I always wanted more and I wanted Mary to get more of whatever it was that she wanted from me. I would beg, even when I was too far gone, and once or twice she listened to what I was saying more than what my body was saying. There wasn't any damage; she realized really quickly I wasn't in the right state of mind to know when I needed to stop. After that so she took that into her own hands."

"Ah, pain-slut?"

"Yeah."

"If you want me to I'll strap your ass. I think I've got some clamps around here somewhere, too… but that's all you are getting from me."

"Yeah, that sounds good… That'll help." John exhaled and it sounded like relief, "Where do you want me?"

"Bare assed and bent over the table." Bobby didn't move as he watched John lower his jeans and jockeys to his knees and lean over the table. He just leaned back in his chair and leisurely sipped his beer while he watched John. John really was an excellent specimen of a man; broad shoulders, well-muscled, large callused hands and hung exceptionally well.

When Bobby had drained the last of his beer he picked up the bottles on the table and rinsed them before lining them up with the others on the sideboard, he watched John hold his position all the while and was thoroughly impressed, holding position when you were so exposed wasn't an easy task for even the most self-disciplined. Bobby walked around the table slowly, letting the boards under his feet sound off at his weight, there was nothing quite like anticipation.

Bobby was completely out of John's line of sight when he worked his thick black belt out of his jeans and doubled it over in his hands. Bobby swung the belt loosely, slapping it against his thighs to gauge the force his blows should have and when he was pleased by the sensation on his leg, he took aim at the impeccable ass on display before him.

The first crack rang out like a gunshot. 

John's shoulder's lost their tenseness as a broad stripe was pinking up on his ass. Bobby took it as a good sign and kept the blows the same as he struck from the crest of John's ass, down his thighs and right back up again. 

Bobby had made three circuits up and down, between each set of strikes he reached out his palm and firmly rubbed John's ass, enjoying the heat he could feel coming off the hunter's freshly reddened skin. Bobby squeezed the tender flesh hard, ignoring John's shuttering breath, and admiring how his hand turned the pinked flesh to fish belly white when he grabbed it and the way it flooded back after.

"Don't you go thinking I'm done, John." Bobby said and laid a cheerful slap on John’s ass.

"I wouldn't even dream of it."

"You got a lot of fucking sass for someone ass up, don't you?" Bobby cut John's answering laugh. It was choked off by three thunderous swats to the tender place where butt met thigh. "Loose that shirt, John."

"Yessir".

"I like that tone a lot better." Bobby pressed himself up against John's back, luxuriating in the contact. He slid his hands up John's well-defined abs, mildly surprised at how warm, smooth and supple John's skin was even under his wiry chest hair. It wasn't like they touched often, or at all really, and even then it was nothing this intimate. Bobby traced patterns against John's skin bracing, himself as John leaned back into him.

When Bobby's fingers came upon a nipple, he snagged it between his two fingers, rolling it and pinching it in equal turns. When he flicked it John jerked backwards with a whimper, startled, pained —but goddamn if he didn't shove his chest back out a moment later, begging shamelessly for more of the same. Bobby was so entranced in the moans, whimpers and squeaks John made that he could only oblige, wrapping his arms around John's torso and tormenting the hard little nubs with his fingers and nails. 

When John's breathing was ragged and his brow and back were damp with sweat Bobby reached into the draw behind him and pulled out a pair of nipple clamps. Bobby stroked his fingers across the nipples he'd been playing with to calm them a bit before he attached the clamps.

"I would'a never guessed you were so sensitive."

"It's been a while, yeah?"

"Mmhmm." John hissed as Bobby attached the clamps and stepped back, "kneel and get, yourself off. You've got three minutes. Come then or not at all."

As soon as John was on his knees he was pumping his cock steadily and hard with one hand, tugging the little silver chain between the clamps with the other and rocking so his red ass would be bumped against the coarse fabric of the jeans around his ankles. The soreness in his ass, the throb of his nipples and the skill of his right hand all worked to get John off with just under twenty seconds to spare. Suddenly out of breath and exhausted and just done, John let himself slump to the floor. 

Bobby moved around the kitchen gathering what he needed with a calm efficiency. In the end a bottle of sports drink, a sleeve of saltines, the rest of his deli sliced ham and a tea towel dampened with hot water were all on the tray and Bobby grunted as he lowered himself to the floor next to John.

"Come on up." Bobby murmured as he pulled John into a sitting position and leaned the larger man against his side. Bobby pressed the warm towel to John's nipples as he removed the clamps from the sensitive nubs helping to dull the sensation. When the clamps were off Bobby unfolded the tea towel and wiped John’s face, back and legs in a gentle but detached way. "Come on, lift a bit. Let me help get your britches back on."

John grumbled reached down and maneuvered his jeans and underwear into place before snagging his shirt from where it fell. "Ugh, I don’t want to move."

"We don’t have to move right away. Here, drink," Bobby uncapped the bottle of sports drink dropped in a straw and held it to John's lips. After a few sips John took hold of the bottle and pulled out the straw in favor of gulping it down. "There’s snacks too."

"Thanks Bobby," John said between bites of ham and crackers, looking a bit livelier. 

"Shit, I guess a strapping did you the world of good. You ask me for shit all the time and never once have I heard a thank you."

John snorted, sprawled out belly down on the floor and smirked before he closed his eyes. 

"I ain't throwing out my back to get to you up, damn idjit."

"'S alright. I've slept on the floor plenty of times, besides I ain't moving." John grumbled.

"Dad? Uncle Bobby?" Bobby turned towards the door as he heard the approaching footsteps. 

"Shit, well I'm glad he didn't come in earlier… That is one conversation I never want to have."

"You'll have to some time or another."

"Yeah, but how much can I really give him? I'm not a top— I can explain from a bottom's point of view but that's not going to be the whole picture." 

"When the time comes, I'll give him a Dom's view if you want me to." Bobby offered before he exited the room, leaving father and son to their own devices.

 

"Dad why are you on the floor?" Dean ambled over and slid to his knees on the floor next to his father. Dean reached out wrapped his fingers around the sleeve of John's shirt and frowned a bit.

"My back was bothering me again. Shouldn't you be in bed, Ace?"

Dean ignored the gentle reprimand to dispense one of his own, "I told you not to pick up Sammy. He's getting too heavy."

"Yeah, yeah…" John rolled his eyes not taking kindly to the fact that his son's first words at finding out about his fictional back injury were basically 'I told you so'. "What do you need Dean?"

"Nothin', I can't really sleep."

"Well you're gonna have to." John forced himself to sit up, and groaned. He was suddenly glad of the excuse of a back injury. Bobby hadn’t dished out anything near what John preferred as far as pain went, but he had set a nice fire in his ass. "Go lay in my bed. I'll be there right after I wash up."

"I'm too old to sleep with you."

"Well you're too old to be wandering the halls when you were told to go to bed, and you did that didn't you?" John hefted himself up, stretched and turned down the hall to the bathroom.

Dean watched his father go then belly flopped onto the floor, not wanting to go to bed just yet, and wanting to share one with his father even less. If you were sharing a bed with your dad jacking off couldn't happen unless you were a particularly disturbed individual. 

"Oh, what's this?" He mumbled and reached out for the shiny chain that was under one of the chairs. He snagged it on a finger and dragged it closer to himself. The chain wasn't real silver, he knew that at first glance. And the two clips at the end… they were covered in rubber at the tips and the ends where your fingers go. What these things were made to hold he wasn't exactly sure. 

"Didn't I tell you to go upstairs?"

Dean jumped guiltily and startled at the sound of his father's voice. "Dad, what—"

"What are you doing out of bed? No, Idea." John wrapped a hand around Dean's arm, all but lifted him to his feet and propelled him ahead with a sharp smack on the ass, "Go, now."

"Going… going…"

Dean didn't think about the clamps he'd picked up until a month later.

It was late night or early morning, depending on how you looked at it. The laundromat was always empty at 3am. Sammy was dead to the world, wrapped in the last clean blanket they had, curled up on one of the benches. Dean was sitting next to his brother checking pockets as he sorted through the dirty clothes. When he shoved his hand into the pockets of pajama pants he pulled out a thin silver chain with clips on the end.

"Shit, that time already huh?" There was a mix of emotions of his dad's face. Pride, resignation, sadness and a few other things Dean couldn’t quite figure out. Dad came closer and threaded his fingers through Dean's hair, petting him like it was the last time he ever would. And shit did that make Dean's stomach drop to his feet. "Well, I guess you can't be little forever… Help me load up the last of this, and then we'll talk."

Dean nodded and went back to his job of checking pockets.

Vending machine coffees were always the worst so Dean never understood why Dad brought them. Maybe it was some type of masochistic streak he had going? Dean used his spare quarters to get a grape soda. They stood side by side in silence, looking out of the giant windows of the laundromat and into the night. The machines churned and chugged and Sammy was snoring lightly over on his bench.

"Those clamps… You…" John took a deep breath and wiped his hand down his face in an attempt to refresh himself. "When you were little I was convinced that you'd be a Sub. You're so much like you mother, but there was this… something —I don't know what that made me think you were a Sub. Maybe I just wanted to see more of myself in you… Who knows?

“I'm glad you're you though. I'm glad you're not a sub. Things are hard for us out there. People get it in their heads that _Sub's can't_ or _Sub's shouldn't_. That we are less. When the fact of the matter is we can and we should if we want to. We are every bit as capable and able as any Dom. Don't you dare forget that Dean.

“I expect you to be a gentleman, with each and every Sub. You don't give orders unless they're to your Sub. You don't touch without permission. You respect safewords and limits. You listen, you listen to all requests and concerns; you don’t have to give in to them but take them into consideration. You learn to swallow your pride, and apologize when you are in the wrong. And cut them some slack, yeah?"

Dean could see his father's grin from the corner of his eye. He just wished the floor would open up and swallow him whole. This was too much. Here was his chance to come clean, to admit that he was a sub. That he had known he was a sub even before the fire. Dean opened his mouth to tell the truth, to strip himself bare and be honest with his father but instead of the 'I'm a Sub, Dad' he wanted to say, "As if Mom ever cut you any slack", came out instead.

Dad laughed honest and loud, like Dean hadn't heard since the fire.

"You may be your mother's son, but you're mine too— I'm sure you can handle having a little extra compassion", Dad said with a grin and clapped his hand on Dean's shoulder; "I'll give you a run down on gear when we get back to the room."

Dean had realized what he was when they had sat for a family portrait after Sammy was born. Mom had worn her favorite dark red dress. He, Sammy and Dad had all worn the same black suits with ties and pocket squares that were the same dark red. Mom had taken Sammy and sat down in the antique high backed chair the studio had set up for her. Dad had naturally taken his place, on his knees to her left and Dean had knelt to the right of his father, directly in front of his mother's feet. Dean hadn't needed any prompting or anything he had just sunk to his knees in what he knew was his spot.

After the shoot Dad had taken Sammy to the bathroom for a change and Dean had stood quietly next to his mother as she spoke to the photographer. He had been tired and bored so he leaned against his mother's leg and tangled his fingers in the hem of her dress as she’d gently finger combed his hair.

"You've got a lovely family."

"Thank you." 

"Your son's presented already? He's so young!"

"He's like his daddy."

"He's a cutie now, but when he hits his teens he'll be a temptation! You'll be beating off the Doms." Both of the ladies laughed and Dean tugged at his mother's dress, prompting her to pick him up. "That was easily the smoothest shoot I've ever done. Did you coach him on where to kneel?"

"No. I never even told Dean to kneel." Dean pressed his face into his mother's neck as she shifted him from one arm to the other, "I was actually going to have him stand to my right, but he knelt first. John's pleased as punch, you know. He's excited to have a submissive son. It's an ego thing I think."

"Men and their legacies."

"Exactly!"

They were halfway through this, Dean mentally coached himself, they'd covered the things that have nothing to do with dynamic first: condoms, birthconrol, safety, abstinence, flings, flirting, non-penetrative intercourse, not giving your father a heart attack by bringing your conquests to the motel rooms. And as if that wasn't awkward enough now they had to sit through the dynamic part of the talk. Dean watched as his father pulled the small blue duffel bag on to the table. He had been told, ever since he was little, never to touch it(which really threw him for a loop because, he could touch fully loaded guns, switch blades, tazers and asps but a bag he never saw his dad open was a no go?).

"You'll get your own kit to learn on. I just want you to be able to recognize and be familiar with these things and what they do. I'll teach you what I can next time we see Bobby, he'll teach you more." John explained as he spread a thin black cloth over the table and smoothed out all the wrinkles, his eyes stayed on the cloth even as he spoke to Dean. "These were Mary's… These… These are some of the things that weren’t burned up."

Dean stood up straight and did his best to focus. This had become so much more important. The things that were in the bag was a part of _before_ , something that his mother and the father he knew before the fire. Dean watched his father lay out the contents of the bag piece by piece; each item he took out was handled with both hands and infinite care. It was worshipful; it was intimate and even though Dean felt like he was watching something he shouldn't, he simply could not look away. In the end there were nine things laid out in a line, arranged perfectly. The order they had been pulled from the bag was clearly not random, there was purpose, there was ritual and there was love in it.

"Sit down, Dean." The words were thick and gruff and Dean knew it was hurting John to look at these things. These were relics of his old life and the woman whose collar he wore to this day. Even in death she owned him completely.

"I don’t know the particulars of your dynamic and I don’t need to. That’s the business of you and whichever partners you'll have. You'll probably test a few things out to see what appeals to you, find what you like or hate. There is bondage with ropes and with leather; there is wax play; there is service; there is age play, animal play, knife play, needle play and hypnosis… There is anything and everything under the sun. 

My knowledge falls in the categories of pain, service, and sharps. And that's what I can tell you about. If you've got questions about more tell me, tell Bobby and we'll find you someone safe to learn with."

"Okay…" Dean nodded eyes wide and face flaming, wondering why he’d even shoved those fucking things in his pocket.

"Knife, insertables, vice, flogger, tawse, candles, paddle and bullwhip." John pressed his fingers on each item as he listed them. In the end he returned to the [knife](http://www.etsy.com/listing/112266328/sterling-pocket-knife-folding-silver?ref=sr_gallery_11&ga_search_query=pocket+knife&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_ship_to=US&ga_search_type=vintage). It was small and dainty. There was a floral design on the hilt and the whole thing was bright and shiny silver, as if it had been polished recently. "Knife. Knife play isn't necessarily blood play. Scrape the knife across their skin, run up and down in lines with the tip, stick the blade in a bowl of ice and lay the flat against someone's skin… There are a million things you can do without drawing blood or causing pain. Don’t mix your hunting blade with your bedroom blade, you’ll risk contamination like that."

"These, go into the body." John gestured vaguely to the mix of items in all shapes, sizes and colors. Some with buttons, some with knobs, all with flared bases and MW etched into the bottom. “Use condoms with any and all of them unless you've got a long term sub and always use lubricants. You can never have too much lube. Lube is your best friend, it prevents all kinds of unpleasant things like chafing, tearing and discomfort."

Dean had somehow found the strength to look up at his father and realized that the man was just as embarrassed, if not more than himself. His face was red, his eyes kept flickering from the toys to the door, to Sammy curled up in bed. He didn’t want Sam learning this stuff yet and he sure as hell would rather be anywhere but here explaining it to Dean. Regardless of his anxiety John went down the line; asking if Dean had any questions, explaining how every thing was used, how to care for them and how it felt to be on the receiving end of them, until finally they came to the neatly coiled white [leather bullwhip](http://loxahatcheewhips.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/s4300421.jpg?w=300&h=225).

"I commissioned this for your mother the same day she told me she would marry me. I had run away from home and joined the military and Mary was an only child whose parents were dead and the rest of the family estranged. It was just her and me in the chapel and I wanted to do something special for her. When I knelt and she locked my collar into place I fastened a marriage belt round her waist and put this in her hands… It took her a year of lessons to learn how to use it properly and even longer before she could hit where she aimed every time."

"Whips aren’t for fooling around with. You learn and you learn well before you use one and hurt someone badly. When you turn sixteen if you want lessons I'll find someone qualified to teach you, but until then stay away from them." 

Dean nodded and stayed quiet taking it all in.

His dad thought he was a Dom but all the information he gave, the hows, whys, whats and more were all from a Sub's point of view. It was information that would be useful if he ever ventured out as himself instead of the Dominant Dean he let the world see.

The week before his fifteenth birthday Dean found himself alone in the motel room. Dad and Sam had both gone back to the mall to return the shoes that Sam's freakishly big feet had decided to outgrow overnight. Dean found himself with time, privacy and a pair of nipple clamps that he had yet to try out.

When he put them on they didn’t hurt so much. There was the pressure of course, but it subsided quickly enough. Dean tugged at the chain between the clamps and winced at the oddly sharp sensation. He palmed his cock in an attempt to gauge his body's reaction but it stayed placid and limp —as uninterested in the clamps as Dean was in history class.

So Dean mentally marked off the things he knew so far; he hated the idea of pain play and didn't ever want to try it, and that nipple torture just didn't do it for him.


	5. Dean and Rhonda

**Dean and Rhonda**

Truth be told, at first he wasn't all that into Rhonda. She was plain, she wasn't flashy and she was probably the only girl at school that didn't fawn over him and pretty herself up to get a shot with him.

She was over-weight, had thick brown hair that was always pulled back into a curly puff, never wore sexy dresses, jewelry or any adornment at all. Also she didn’t wear the trappings of her orientation. No belts, bracelets, boots or leather. No one at the school knew if she was a Dom or a Sub or a Switch and whenever they made an assumption she just laughed and played along.

Dean only approached her because the girl he was hoping to score with, Kristy Michaels, turned out to be a bitch with a personal vendetta against chubby girls. Dean had only seen the sweet things Kristy wanted him to see at first but it wasn't long before he’d caught on to the front she was putting up. 

Dean watched from down the hall as Kristy's hand flashed out and knocked Rhonda's books from her hands. They scattered across the floor and her Walkman crashed down and broke apart.

"Pick it up, tubby." Kristy and her two ever-present friends all snickered behind their hands. 

"It's a damn shame that you morons can't find anything better to do with your time." Rhonda sighed and rolled her eyes,"I don’t have time for pigtail pulling, you're not my type anyway."

"OH Ew! You're so conceited! I'd never- Why? Who would want to be into some non-dynamic freak like you!"

"I dunno about all that," Dean said loudly as he sauntered onto the scene. Dean glanced down and was surprised to see a Metallica cassette still half stuck in the Walkman, he reached down and picked up the broken machine. "You gotta admit she's got some awesome taste in music. Metallica— yeah, you rock."

"Ha, thanks." Rhonda laughed and then crouched down to get her things. Her shoulders were stiff and she kept her eyes on her stuff. Even though she acted like this was nothing to her, Dean could see that she was hurt. 

"Let me give you a hand," Dean said as he crouched down and helped her gather her books. As they stacked the books and picked up the smaller things, stuffing them into her pockets Dean kept up a constant stream of chatter, "We should get coffee some time."

"Thanks, man", she muttered and stood up. "I'll see you around."

Dean watched, a frown on his face, as she briskly walked away.

[ ](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/lylithj2/23967405/21923/21923_original.jpg)

Not one to give up easily or at all really, Dean cornered Rhonda the next day in the cafeteria. She was so involved in whatever it was she was doing that she didn’t even notice when Dean slid into the seat next to hers.

"So coffee, yeah?" 

She looked up startled when he pushed a paper cup of takeaway coffee over to her. "I-I…" Rhonda stuttered, clearly at a loss. She licked her lips and smiled sheepishly. "Thank you. I don’t know what your end game is but thank you. For both the help and the coffee."

It was a mix of indignation, sorrow and oddly enough a touch of pride that bloomed in Dean's chest. So yeah, the only reason Dean had even spoken to Rhonda was to show up a two faced bullying bitch he had considered dating, but why was she so suspicious of just coffee. Dean leaned back and took a sip from his own cup.

"You don't have to sit here you know…" she told him bowing her head once again to whatever she had been working on when he’d first sat down, "I'm alright on my own. I can handle Michaels just fine, I don't need a protector."

"I never said you did." Dean reached into his back pack and pulled out the walkman he had fixed up the night before and placed it on the table right in front of her. "I meant what I said, you've got good taste in music."

Rhonda's head snapped up again when she realized what was on the table. "You fixed it!" She gasped, grabbed up the walkman and smiled wide and bright. "I can’t even tell it was ever broken. Thank you so much, you didn't have to."

Dean felt the heat climb up his neck and settle into his cheeks. Rhonda looked like a different person when she smiled, she stopped being plain and became lovely with a stretch of her lips and a light in her eyes.

"You've done all of this for me… I don’t even know your name."

"Dean… Dean Winchester… I'm new in town."

"Rhonda", she said and stuck out her hand. Dean didn't find it strange that she thrust her hand for a shake the way men did as opposed to the more feminine palm down extension. If a woman extended her hand it was only polite to kiss her knuckles, regardless of orientation. "Nice to meet you, Dean." 

Dean smiled and shook her hand before turning it in his grip and kissing her knuckles anyway. He didn't mean much by it, he was just being polite but something in the startled expression of her face made him wonder if anyone else had ever treated Rhonda with even a bit of courtesy before.

[ ](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/lylithj2/23967405/21923/21923_original.jpg)

They hung out often before anything happened between them.

They swapped mixed tapes, watched cheesy 50's movies together and cut gym class and lunch to drive around and check out different diners, looking for the one with the thickest milkshake. It was after a milkshake run that they ended up in Rhonda's basement bedroom. 

It started as something simple; Rhonda had left her book for English class at home and Dean suggested they get it after they got their milkshakes. When they pulled up to her block Rhonda invited him in, "No sense waiting in your car, we still have an hour before English. Just come in, I'll get my book, find us some lunch and then we can head back and get to school in time."

"Yeah, alright." Dean passed her the milk shakes and pulled his key from the ignition. He followed her into the little ranch house, looking around at the unfamiliar trappings of a home. There were pictures on the wall of Rhonda, a woman who was obviously her mother and a third woman who looked close enough to be related. There were knickknacks here and there and Dean followed Rhonda absentmindedly into her basement.

It was nothing like Dean expected but it suited Rhonda regardless. The basement was divided into a front and back room by tall dark wooden bookshelves. A matching desk and chair were pushed into one of the corners of the front room across from it was a stool and easel, a half finished painting on it. In the center of the room was an overly plush ivory rug and a pair of gray floor pillows.

Each portion of the room was equally nice. The walls were the same pale green with ivory flowers stenciled onto them. The bedroom floor was covered in gray carpeting, instead of the wooden flooring of the front room. A large wrought iron four-poster bed with gray and snowy white blankets and comforters, dominated the room. The bed may have been the focal point but Dean's eyes were drawn to the racks on the bedroom wall where a collection of impact toys were proudly displayed.

Dean walked over, a frown on his face. He fingered the floggers; there were six in all, two of each kind. There were glossy sticks with braided leather handles in an array of thicknesses and lengths. There was a riding crop that dangled by it wrist strap. Under the rack was an open hope chest filled with brightly colored rope and two shoeboxes fitted nicely into the corner.

"You've got so much…" 

Rhonda came out from under the bed with her book in one hand and a fluffy orange sock in the other. She looked over her shoulder at Dean and grinned, "Well a girl's gotta have options!" Rhonda popped up onto her feet and came over to the rack. "This one's my baby, the balance is marvelous and it's so comfortable. Suede is just the best", she said, grabbing a cream and brown flogger.

"The balance…?" Suddenly everything slotted into place and Dean resisted the urge to slam his head against the wall for being so damn oblivious. "You're a Dom." 

"Well yeah," Rhonda muttered, as she swirled her flogger in neat little figure eights in mid air. "What did you think?"

"I… I didn’t think about it really. I just, you're Rhonda. That's it." Dean's mouth snapped shut and he looked away when she smiled big and bright.

[ ](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/lylithj2/23967405/21923/21923_original.jpg)

"Are you one of those subs who like other subs?"

Dean chocked on his milkshake, the question had come from out of the blue and… "How the fuck did you know I was a sub?" Dean snarled at the girl.

"It's kinda really obvious if someone looks at you." Rhonda shrugged and played with the frizzy bits of her hair that had escaped the puff. "Yeah you can pass as a Dom, no problem. You've got the swagger down, and I'm sure with hands with calluses like yours, you can spank and manhandle with the best of them, but you're just so obviously a Sub. I dunno— I notice things, it may just be me."

Dean worried his bottom lip and then looked over at Rhonda once more. She hadn't done anything to deserve Dean's mistrust. Hell, she'd been nothing but sweet and accommodating the whole time he’d been in this stupid town. Rhonda managed to see what genius Sammy —a whole school away now— and Dad had overlooked for years. 

"Hey, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't mean to upset you, you know." Dean's silence on the subject managed to send Rhonda into a bit of a tizzy.

"No one else knows…" Dean muttered, their voices were now low enough to be swept away in the din of the lunchroom. "I mean _no one_."

"You can't be serious? Your Dad doesn’t know? ...Your brother?" 

"I'm not weak."

"No one ever said you were. I gotta say though that's a really shitty way to think about subs. There ain’t shit weak about asking for what you want and letting someone else take the reins." The look Rhonda gave him could have frozen a volcano, "Didn't you say your Dad was a sub?"

"Dad… Dad's different. He was a Marine." Dean shrugged helplessly. She couldn't understand. "Even if he's got his tags on and his tattoo showing they see the collar and they… It's different."

"How? I can't understand if you don’t at least try to explain it to me."

Dean wanted to put it all on the table. He wanted to say:

' _They treat him like a kid, or like his worries don’t exist, like he doesn’t matter. They ask where's your Dom, like he's not capable of handling it. Most people, hunters won’t work with him because they're so caught up keeping a Sub safe, that they forget he can take care of himself just fine. They pull out chairs, they try to chase him out of bars, they offer him collars. They act like he's something too precious to leave alone, like if they're not watching and regulating him he'll break or get snatched up or something. They don’t let him live like he wants to— like we all want to. ___'

_Instead Dean said, "Forget it."_

_Rhonda pursed her lips and snorted, "If you ever want to know what it's like for real, you let me know. I have friends who would love to scene with you."_

_"What, you too good for me now, Ron?"_

_"If you want it to be me, I'm fine with that." She popped a few M &Ms into her mouth before handing the bag to Dean. "Ick, peanuts. Look, I just know some people don’t like their first experience to be with their friend in case it gets awkward."_

_"I don’t know how much more awkward it can get. I mean you're pretty damn out there." Dean said before he really thought about it._

_Rhonda huffed a half laugh and nodded, "Make some time, tell me when and we'll do this."_

__

[ ](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/lylithj2/23967405/21923/21923_original.jpg)

"Okay, you sure about this?"

"I said yeah the first twelve times you asked me, we gonna do this or what?" Dean griped at Rhonda as she sat in front of her hope chest and pulled out a few bundles of dark blue rope. 

"I just want to be sure this isn't you rushing in to prove something." Rhonda gathered up her rope and walked back to the front room. She dropped the rope on the edge of her rug and pulled the floor pillows closer. "Loose your hoodie and your shirt, leave the wife-beater on."

Dean swallowed and pulled off his layers of shirts. He felt awkward and exposed standing there in socks, jeans and a wife-beater. Even in the heat of Arizona he never was without a few layers. It bulked him up and hid the embarrassing freckles that covered his body. Getting himself together Dean swaggered over and folded to his knees on the pillow next to Rhonda. 

Dean couldn’t perform the act of kneeling the graceful way he remembered his father kneeling for his mother, but he tried regardless. Rhonda wasn't the love of his life, she wasn't his Domme, or his Mistress, but she was worth all the respect that he could show her. 

"Do I get a safe word?"

"Why? Does stop not work for you?" She asked not even a bit of sarcasm or facetiousness in her voice. "I'm not a fan of role play, gags or anything that would make the words no or stop confusing. Besides I'm only doing an easy tie… but if you want one, then sure."

"Nah, it's okay."

Rhonda nodded and pulled the bight from under one of the wraps let the bundle fall and uncoil. "Lift you arms up." 

Dean complied immediately, lifting his hands and settling them on the top of his head. Dean held his body tight, fending off a shudder as Rhonda started the tie between his shoulder blades. He watched, mesmerized as Rhonda's deft hands moved the rope around his chest twice before she secured the column tie behind his back. 

For what seemed like forever but was only about eight minutes Dean was caught up in his sense of touch. He felt all sorts of things he never would have imagined or given a second thought to before. The rope was soft and easy to feel even through the layer of clothing. When rope ran against rope the vibrations went through his whole body. Dean flushed as each and every run of the rope worked to make him hard and send chills up his spine. Rhonda's hands were warm and rough and not at all like the soft and feminine fingers that he remembered his mother and Ellen having, the only other Dommes he’d known. Dean noticed that Rhonda's fingers were blunt, callused in odd places when she slipped a finger under the ropes in order to test the tension and flatten out the wraps. Her calluses were on the pads of her first two fingers and her thumb, there were also smaller rough patches between her index and middle fingers as opposed to where they would be if she handled a shot gun. 

When all was said and done Dean was trussed up on the floor. His calves tied to his thighs so that his legs were bent just like a frog's before it jumps. His arms were folded comfortably behind his back and secured to the harness that made him very aware of every breath he took. 

Dean lay enforcedly still. The ropes, while comfortable and not squeezing or cutting off his circulation, gave him no leeway. It was scary the way he couldn’t move even if something happened. The thought of not being able to stop or defend against a threat made his eyes flicker around the room, his breaths quicken and sweat start to bead on his brow.

"Calm down, I'm right here." Rhonda muttered as she pulled Dean's head and shoulders into her lap. She threaded her fingers through his hair, lightly scratching his scalp, and following the curve of his body to his neck and shoulders where she rubbed, firm and slow. "I can undo the tie whenever you're ready, and if you need to be out sooner than the three minutes it will take to untie, I've got my hook right here." She used her free hand to hold up the emergency rope cuter that Dean hadn't even seen her grab.

Dean nodded and pressed his face against her thigh, wishing he could hide the embarrassed flush that he felt creeping up his neck to his ears. Rhonda didn't mention it and kept rubbing her warm, thick hands up and down his neck and back. Her hands were steady and not once did she slip them beneath the thin cotton of his undershirt.

Dean, confident that he wasn’t about to be taken advantage of, let his mind wander as he sunk into the sensation of the ropes. The room smelled like Rhonda; a mix of her natural musk and the shea butter skin cream she used. The boom-box perched on the shelf was on low, in the quiet Dean could hear the chords of _Paint it Black_ over the sound of his and Rhonda's breaths. 

The stillness was amazing. When he was with Dad and Sammy there was always something to be done; guns to clean, wounds to tend to, food to cook or something else that needed doing. At school there was the façade that he had to wear to make sure he was respected, and maintained a reputation that kept him and his family safe. There was always something, but right at this moment with the ropes around him there was nothing to be done and nothing he could do, even if he wanted to.

And so Dean lay there indulging in the quiet, soft touch of Rhonda.

[ ](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/lylithj2/23967405/21923/21923_original.jpg)

"Sit here," Rhonda pulled out a chair from the table and guided Dean into it. She checked him over briefly and once she was satisfied that he was okay she turned away and rummaged through the fridge.

"We're missing English." Dean said lazily as he slumped over onto the table. His looked at his wrists and traced the red pattern the ropes had pressed into his skin before he drew it up to his mouth. Dean ran his tongue over the ridges tasting the heat and texture.

"And I will miss History and Economics and you will miss Math and Spanish." Rhonda said resolutely as she filled a pot with water and set it on the stove. "There is no way in hell I'm letting you go back to school like this."

"That's all my afternoon classes, you know."

"Yeah and you're spaced the fuck out." She grumbled, "Pasta okay with you or do you prefer rice? Any allergies?"

"What ever is good, I'm not picky."

"Alright then."

"Is it always like this?"

"Everyone's different. Since you haven’t subbed before I didn't know how you'd react, this could just be the way you are afterwards." Rhonda carried over a chopping board and knife and stood next to Dean as she made short work of peppers, onions and garlic and dumped it all in a sizzling pan. "I had no idea you were into rope like that."

"Yeah well, neither did I."

"Seriously? Usually people know what they like or would be more inclined to try." Rhonda opened a can of sardines and dumped them in the veggies and tossed in some seasoning. "I mean I've always known I like some pain… I think I'm more sadomasochistic than anything."

"What you're a Switch? I thought you were a Domme."

"No, I'm not a Switch. And don’t call me a Domme. I'm a Dom, end of story."

"Isn't a Domme a female Dom? Why so bitchy about it?" 

"Is a Lawyerina a female lawyer? Is there such a thing as Officerella? How about Doctorette?" Rhonda put the two plates down hard enough that Dean was genuinely surprised that they didn't shatter. "I'm a Dom."

"Shit, okay. Don’t bite my head off." 

"Sorry, sorry. It irritates me." She muttered and passed Dean a glass of juice. 

The teenagers sat in companionable silence. Dean scarfing down the fish and rice as if he had been starving and Rhonda picking her way through her food slowly. When they were done Dean took the dishes and washed them while Rhonda pulled a quilt from the linen closet and set up the VHS in the living room.

Dean didn't make it through the first ten minutes of the movie before he fell asleep. When he was awakened by Rhonda's insistent shaking the credits were scrolling across the screen. 

"What, what is it?" 

"It's 3:00. Don’t you have to go get your brother in like twenty minutes?"

"Fuck. Fuck, yeah." Dean scrubbed at his eyes with his fingers and rolled his shoulders to loosen them. "I'm gone, I'll meet you tomorrow morning yeah?"

"Yeah."

[ ](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/lylithj2/23967405/21923/21923_original.jpg)

Sammy looked up at Dean with pursed lips and eerily questioning eyes.

Dean chose to ignore the look and continued on his way to the drive through. "What do you want off the menu, Shortstuff?"

"What are you getting?" Sam asked as he peered at the menu, his eyes flickering between the chicken strips and the fish special. "I'm not sure what I want."

"Nothing, I'm not hungry."

"You feeling okay? You look a little… you don’t look bad but you don’t look how you normally do."

"I'm fine, Sammy, I just need some sleep."

[ ](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/lylithj2/23967405/21923/21923_original.jpg)

Rhonda handed off the two travel mugs of coffee to Dean before she slid into the Impala. Once seated comfortably, she dragged her back pack into her lap and then the smoothed and freshly varnished stick too. The stick was rounded and there were strips of leather tacked onto the top, the beginnings of a knot were obvious.

"What's that?" Dean nodded to the stick and pulled away from the curb. 

"I'm making another cane." She explained and started to weave the leather around the rod. "I've already soaked, sanded and varnished this one. I'm just going to braid a leather handle now."

"Don't you have like ten of those things?" 

"Yeah, but they aren’t perfect. I want to make one that's perfectly balanced and perfectly straight." Rhonda pulled on the leather strips until the knot at the top was seamless. "I'll probably give away the others once I get this one right."

"Why canes?"

"Because I love them. They're a pleasure to use, caning is a skill. You've gotta know your stance, know how to aim, how much force to use and just where to strike." Dean watched Rhonda in the rearview, her eyes lit up in a way he'd never seen and he could see the pink on her cheeks even though her skin was dark enough to hide a blush. Rhonda's fingers trailed lovingly up and down the stem of the cane her thumbs lightly caressing the leather of it. "To be on the receiving end, it's a pleasure so few people understand. The pain is sharp and it stings but it's a focused pain, it's intense and just so—"

"Should I leave you two alone?" Dean sniggered and immediately regretted it when he saw Rhonda's face lock down and become bland and plain once more.

"Fuck you, Dean." She said snatching her coffee from the cup holder.

"Believe it or not, I wouldn't be at all that opposed to that."

[ ](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/lylithj2/23967405/21923/21923_original.jpg)

They both were called to up to the teacher's desk for swats during homeroom. Dean gritted his teeth and took his ten with a few grunts and clenched fists. It was a punishment and that couldn’t have been clearer. The swats were abrupt, painful and nothing Dean wanted to repeat.

Rumors were often spread about pain-slut subs, who got in trouble at school just so they could get a taste of the paddle. It was complete bullshit of course, spread by teenage Doms who felt like they needed to make shit up. No self respecting Sub wanted the swats handed out by teachers. It was always a quick and shameful affair that left the bitter guilty feeling of having disappointed someone after it happened.

Dean stood off to the side as he watched Rhonda take her six. He could tell it took everything in her not to rub her thighs together in an embarrassing display. The pain made her lick her lips and curl her toes. When she stood up and turned to go back to her seat there were titters around the room. Lust was written as clear as day on her face. Amazingly enough, Dean couldn’t find a trace of shame or embarrassment in her eyes. 

When her gaze found his all he saw was hunger.

 

 

They cut their first period classes and fucked on the school roof.

[ ](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/lylithj2/23967405/21923/21923_original.jpg)

Dean didn’t think much of Sonic slushies, but it was the only spot that did mozzarella sticks right and weren't cheap when it came to onion rings (Rhonda couldn’t get enough of those). So that's where they went for lunch.

With a tray filled with junk food and way too sugary drinks between them Rhonda reached into her pocket and withdrew two simple leather bracelets. The weave was thin but distinctly masculine. Both bracelets had three polished sandalwood beads knotted into them.

"It's not a collar. Besides, I doubt you would want one." She said with a small, shy smile, "But I made them for you. It's not an ownership thing or anything like that— I… You said you move around a lot. If you stayed… I —I… It… It's… we're friends right?"

"Yeah," Dean said his throat dry and his voice shaky, "Yeah, we're friends."

Dean held out his arm and let Rhonda tie the leather bands around his wrists.

[ ](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/lylithj2/23967405/21923/21923_original.jpg)

The way Rhonda talked about the cane as if it were some great and splendid treasure had intrigued Dean.

When Rhonda pronounced the cane she had made perfect, Dean was curious.

When Rhonda chalked the cane, wrapped her pillow in a black t-shirt and taught him how to use it, Dean was surprised.

When Rhonda told him to lay stripes on her ass and thighs until she came, Dean was enraptured.

When Dean finally worked up the nerve to ask Rhonda to cane him, he was obsessed.

 

 

"You can keep it." Rhonda offered as she rubbed aloe on to Dean's ass. The cool gel muted the sting and Dean didn’t really like that but he couldn’t afford to have marks, not when he lived in such close quarters with his overly inquisitive brother and hyper observant father.

"Thanks," Dean murmured as he ran a finger down the length of the cane.

[ ](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/lylithj2/23967405/21923/21923_original.jpg)

Dean tugged down the sleeves of his hoodie over the new rope marks before he entered the house they were renting. Dean wasn't spacey anymore, Rhonda having helped him adjust back to reality before he walked the two blocks home.

"Dean," John called just as he walked through the door, "what's this I hear about you driving off with some girl?"

"Dad…" Dean sighed and hoisted his book bag higher onto his shoulder.

"No excuses, I want to know what's going on. I know for a fact I taught you to have more respect than to sneak round with some sub—"

"She's a Dom and she lives up the block. I drive her to and from school in exchange for coffee and lunch. We've got the same home room and English class so of course people see us together." And yeah, it wasn't exactly the whole truth but there wasn’t a single lie in that explanation whatsoever.

"You mean Wacky-Rhonda?" Sammy chirruped from where he was sprawled out on the carpet, stacks of textbooks and loose-leaf paper all around him. No doubt he was finding extra sources for his homework, the little dweeb.

"Don't call her that!" Dean snapped, irritated that Sammy of all people would fall in with the bullies. "People are complete dicks and pick on her because she's not the kind to wear her dynamic on her sleeve. Besides, she listens to Black Sabbath— that makes her alright in my book."

John nodded, relief clear on his face. "Okay. Good."

"What would be the issue if I found a Sub anyway?" Dean grumbled, cloying shame and unease filled his stomach as he fed the lie that was his life.

"There's nothing wrong with dating, but you know sooner or later we have to leave, Deano." John looked at his eldest son with a sad smile and sympathetic eyes. "It's not fair to get involved with someone only to have to leave without a word and make them wonder if it was their fault." 

Dean snorted and made his way to the room he shared with Sam. He closed the door behind him pulled back his sleeve and licked the fading rope marks on his fore arm. "Yeah, well at least I ain't gotta wonder."

[ ](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/lylithj2/23967405/21923/21923_original.jpg)

"I got something for you." Rhonda smirked as she slid into the bench and stole some of Dean's soggy cafeteria french-fries.

"Oh yeah, what?"

"Here. Go put it on." She passed him a little brown bag with a devious smirk, and fuck if that didn’t just turn him on. She stood from her seat, popped another fry in her mouth and glanced at the clock on the wall, "I've got a tutoring session now, which really sucks but, hey, finals." 

Dean frowned as Rhonda walked away wondering just what was in the bag. 

 

 

"Aren't we just a pretty little thing?" Rhonda crooned as she skimmed her fingers over Dean's erection right where it was straining against the pink satin of the panties he was wearing. "Pink looks good on you but green is really your color."

Dean turned his face away, unable to even look at Rhonda as she teased and praised him alternately. He was embarrassed but also helplessly turned on by the predicament he was in. Four months ago if any one had told Dean Winchester that he would be trussed up tightly in pink rope wearing rose pink satin panties while a Dom played with his balls he would have broken their jaw and shot out their knee caps. But well, here he was immobile and helpless on Rhonda's bed as she did her level best to make his cum all over the lace trimmed panties she’d bought for him.

[ ](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/lylithj2/23967405/21923/21923_original.jpg)

"Where the _fuck_ were you, that your brother just up and left and you didn't know?" John shouted and raged as Dean curled in on himself, pressed as close to the couch and away from his father's rage as he could get. "Where were you Dean?"

Dean stared down at his hands, refusing to look up at his father. 

This was his fault. He hadn’t been watching Sammy, he had thought it was okay to leave him at home so he could get in some time with Rhonda and her ropes. And clearly that had been one giant mistake.

"Boy, answer me!" John roared, making Dean flinch back. He bit his lip and tried to calm his racing heart. Not once had his father ever hit him, but he’d never shouted like this either and it was terrifying. "Fuck it you know what. Stay here. Don’t leave this goddamn house. Pack up, we're leaving when I find your brother.

“I thought we were past the need for babysitters but clearly I thought wrong. Turns out neither one of you can be trusted! Two extra mouths …I'll send Sammy to Jim and drop you off at Bobby's when I pass Sioux Falls." 

Dean's head snapped up. Nausea and dizzying panic made it hard to breathe. "Dad! Dad, no! You can't!"

"Yes! If I can't trust you to be mature enough to be responsible and look after Sammy, then I need someone else to."

"No! No!” Dean flung himself forward reaching out blindly and clutching his father's arm desperately, "Daddy, No! Please, please I'm sorry! I'll watch him I swear, I won’t leave his side, just please! Don't do this, please!"

John pulled away briskly and walked out the door slamming it behind him.

Dean sank to the floor where he’d stood and curled in on himself. His stomach roiled and twisted until he leaned over and threw up. He cried too but he didn’t notice that.

[ ](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/lylithj2/23967405/21923/21923_original.jpg)

Dean spent the four days it took for his father to find Sam and drag him back, on the living room floor. He didn’t answer the phone, the door or any of Rhonda's 'is anyone home' shouts.

Dean curled up on the floor and prayed that he'd die quick and silent. He would die a long drawn out death at Bobby's, away from Sammy, away from Dad. With no reason to get up in the mornings he would just waste away.

He wasn't Dad, he didn’t have a wife to avenge.  
He wasn’t Sammy who lived to learn, to be independent.  
Dean was Dean, he lived to protect and take care of his family. It was all he ever knew.

[ ](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/lylithj2/23967405/21923/21923_original.jpg)

Dean woke up in the hospital with Sammy at his side, and his father at the foot of the bed.

"Dehydration and a severe case of hypoglycemia. You started seizing on the way to the hospital." The disapproval in Sammy's voice was loud and clear even though he spoke in a whisper.

Dean didn’t answer. He just tipped his head back and breathed for a moment. Once he was calm enough, he slipped the IV out of his arm with practiced ease and looked to his father. 

"I'm ready to go." He stated, detached and serene —as if he hadn't thrown a tantrum that was the envy of every spoiled four year old and just woken from a fugue state.

John said nothing about Blue Earth or Sioux Falls, like he'd forgotten —Dean hadn't though.


	6. Dean the Dom

**Dean the Dom** :

Dean had been born to nurture. Caring for his family brought him the most satisfaction. Making Dad proud by taking care of Sammy and being ready for the hunt; keeping Sammy fed, safe and relatively happy came second to nothing. But he dove into his role with out abandon ever since Arizona. He watched Sammy, worked during school hours and devoted everything he had to Sam and the hunt. He didn't care that he had left parts of himself behind.

If he had to leave his submissive self behind then so be it. It wasn't like he could take the risk and be caught up again like he had been with Rhonda. Easy hook ups were better for him; short, sweet, no strings attached and no getting stupidly blissed out while tied up in someone's ropes. Still Dean had an itch though, intimacy, sex, connection… He still wanted it, wanted it all but just not in such a dangerous way. Anything that could make him loose Sammy was something that had to be stuck from the list.

And so Dean played the role of traveling Dom. For an observant sixteen year old it was easy to dissect and mimic Doms believably. It all boiled down to the three 'A's; Attire, Attitude and Action. 

There were plenty of social cues that just screamed sub; tight clothing, jewelry that resembled cuffs or collars in one way or another, exposure of skin and the grace of attention-getting movements. Dean who’d never cared for tight clothing or much jewelry found Dom style easy to imitate and bend to his needs. Any bully worth his salt sat up and took notice when the quiet nerd's brother was 6' 2" with a leather jacket, a well worn bullwhip on his hip and all the swagger of the hardest most irrepressible hard ass Doms. 

There would always be the social taboos that helped Dean present as a Dom. Sub's don't travel alone. Subs don't go into rough and rowdy bars unless they're looking for a rough and rowdy ride. Subs were spoiled and catered to. Subs were to be pursued and were expected to play coy not do the perusing. 

Dean knew that lining his pockets with enough cash to keep Sammy fed was easier if people could easily see him as a Top, as an actual threat. There weren't too many pool players willing to place bets against a sub. Usually they were too busy searching for a collar, or the accompanying Dom. And on some level Dean understood, because really, who would let such a young and pretty sub out of their sight? Only a moron would take cock-sucker lips, a sweet ass and pretty green eyes for granted. And that meant everyone was trying to get a piece.

Doms weren't known for their chastity and neither was Dean.

There were Subs and Switches who sang his praises in every town he left. He was one hell of a lover, channeling all of his energy, focus and secret fantasies into scenes and sex. Dean was in the details, the petting of hair at just the right moment, the right type of crop or whip and the sensuous kisses and whispers of 'My good girl', 'perfect', 'beautiful boy' and other endearments that made his partners feel treasured. 

When the night was over they would sigh and melt against Dean, thanking him over and over for the best and most intense sex of their life. When morning came they found themselves alone and Dean found himself scrubbing his skin red raw during his morning shower.

Sammy's teenage years were Hell.

It started off small; the constant irritated looks that Sam would display when he was issued an order; the insistence that his name wasn’t Sammy—just Sam (of course Dean took this time to point out that his name was actually Samuel) and the increase of rude comments whenever Dad was in hearing range.

In an attempt to calm things down before it got too bad Dean called his brother to one side. 

"Sammy, come here." He said in the same tone that would make Sam drag him self over to stand in front of Dean to have his hair combed when he was ten. 

Sam just grunted and flopped down on the bed closest to the door.

"Sam. I just want to talk to you." It was more of an exhausted sigh than anything.

"Yeah sure," Sam approached his brother carefully, something in Dean's tone wasn’t right and he needed to know what it was. "What is it?"

"I want to know… What's eating you up lately?" Dean leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and looking Sam straight in the eye. "You're not yourself lately, and yeah, you're growing up and I can't take care of everything the way I used to —but come on, I'm still your big brother. Let me help you." Dean implored his eyes were so earnest, open and sincere that Sam drew back as if he'd been punched.

"There is nothing you can do. Dad won’t give up the hunt and you won’t ever stop trailing after him."

"Sammy, you don’t understand—"

"Then make me understand, Dean! I'm not a little kid anymore! I can handle it."

"It’s not that simple…" 

Sam just took a step back and leaned against the wall, settling in with an expectant look on his face. "Make it simple."

And suddenly Dean hated his dad just a little bit. It wasn’t fair, the hard questions were supposed to be his responsibility. Now, fourteen years after his wife had died, John had gotten his shit together. His hands worked just fine, he wasn't binge drinking anymore and he could pick up his responsibilities once more but he hadn't. Dean was still keeping the family fed, raising his brother and answering the hard fucking questions.

"Dad's… Dad tries, he really does. It's just that life's been shit to him. He lost his wife, his Domme and was left with two little kids, no house, no help and the only thing keeping him going is finding the yellow eyed son of a bitch that killed Mom."

"It's been fourteen years Dean. I think the time for mourning has passed. And even if it hasn’t, why are we the ones that suffer for it? He could have left us with Pastor Jim, Uncle Bobby, on our own in an apartment!" Sam was gathering steam and making far too much sense for Dean to deal with, "It’s not fair that he made a four year old into a father because he couldn't step up to the plate."

"Sam!" Dean snapped, unwilling to hear Sam disparage their father any more, "Don’t say shit like that. Dad loves us, he always has. Things are just hard for him right now."

"Things are always going to be hard for him Dean. He's a widower and a Dom-less Sub." 

Sam pressed his lips together and ran his fingers through his hair. For a moment Dean saw John in his face, the weariness, the anger and the sadness all etched into his features and knew in his heart that he had failed. Sam was anything but happy. 

"Things are hard for us too. We've never been in the same school for more than six months —you quit school for the hunt, we've never had actual friends outside of each other, never had a job that doesn’t come with a fatality risk, have little to no social skills and Dean, we've never even had a place to call home. And yeah, you might remember Lawrence but I don't Was it really that bad?" 

Dean closed his eyes wishing he could block out the hurtful truths but he couldn't, "No Sam… Lawrence… It was a good place, but we can't go back." That was a lie, Dad had kept the deed to the rebuilt house and the garage. He rented both out and used the money to keep them in ammo.

"Dean, you've never been able to call a single place home; to pin up that Black Sabbath poster you keep in your bag and I've never had a bed of my own." Sam ended his tirade in a whisper, his dark compassionate eyes looking at Dean with all the naivety of youth and pain of the wise. "Cant we just, make him stop?"

Sammy's sad eyes did nothing to quell the rage that that last comment sparked. "Don’t make the mistake of thinking that just because Dad's a sub that you can force him to do anything—"

"That's not what I meant and you know it!"

"I would have thought you knew better! I don’t know how you could be such a chauvinist, being raised by—" a pair of Submissives is what Dean wanted, but couldn’t bring himself to say.

"You? Yeah I get it Dean." Sam growled and pushed past his brother storming out of the motel room into the night.

"Where's your brother?" John asked as he stepped into the room. The lines around his eyes were deeper than usual and his mouth was dragged down into a disgusted frown. 

Dean looked at his father and shrugged. Sam hadn't left a note or said which way he was headed; besides it really hadn't been so long. If it got too late Dean would track him down.

"You just let him wander off?" 

"No. Dad, he's fine he just needed to work off some steam." Dean tried to placate his father, but seeing no change in the man's expression he just sighed and pushed himself up off the sofa. "I'll go get him."

"Right, I'm gonna snag a shower. Just let me know when you're back in."

"Sure thing," Dean mumbled, snatching his keys off of the table beside the door. Finding Sam shouldn’t be too difficult. While this was a sizeable town it was no New York or Miami. There were four nightclubs, three bars, five café's, two diners and only one library.

Dean pulled the door to the motel room open and was stunned to see his baby brother with his hand raised, poised to knock on the door.

"You're back?"

"Er. Yeah," 

"Library closed?"

Sam gave a sheepish grin and rubbed the back of his neck with an obscenely large hand, "No, the internet café."

Dean smirked and shook his head, "You dweeb."

Sam chuckled and pushed past Dean into the room. "Dad back yet?"

"Yeah, he's in the shower. I'm heading out. There's a bar a few blocks over. I'mma get some cash for the road."

"Later, then."

Pick ups were always easy, but this time he didn't even have to try. When Dean came in she waved him over. She was thin, cute and as subby as sub could be with her tight clothes glittery bangle bracelets, chain belts and lace choker necklace.

"You must be new in town!" she smiled wide as he approached and flagged down the bar tender for two shots. "Hi, I'm Lisa."

"I'm Dean. And no, just passing through." Dean gave her a warm smile and took a seat beside her. If Lisa was interested, so was he. She was hot, she was into him and she seemed like the type to understand the whole one night of fun no strings attached thing.

"So Dean. Would a small town girl like me be able to take advantage of a well-traveled guy like you? Or do you require wining and dining first?" She purred her painted lips set in the most salacious smirk Dean had ever witnessed.

"Oh honey, I'm a cheap date. Two drinks and I'm yours." 

"Then let me get you a chaser!"

Dean stripped off his boxers in one swift move his eyes never leaving Lisa’s as she shimmied out of her dress and belts. She left on the choker, the jewelry and the pumps but that was all she wore. 

"C’mere," Dean rumbled catching Lisa's hand and tugging her to him. This is where he needed to be creative, be commanding in his orders so that he could get off too. It was a balance Dean strived to maintain; being assertive, being demanding and making sure that when the sex started there was enough stimulation that when he closed he eyes or tucked his face into his partner's body that he could easily imagine that they were a Dom and that he had orders to fulfill or that feeling of absolute bondage.

"You're fucking wet for me aren’t you, baby." He murmured deep and low close to her ear as he rubbed two fingers over the mound of her cunt.

"Yessir."

"You want to get off tonight don’t you," Dean bit her neck hard enough to leave a imprint and lapped at the redness he left before pulling away. His fingers invading and pressing against her most intimate parts. Lisa's hips bucked and stuttered as she moaned Yessir again. "Horny thing."

Dean climbed onto the bed and lay on his back, tugging Lisa with him. He sat her on him so that they could grind against each other as he toyed with her nipples, mouthed at her neck and scratch up and down her thighs drawing little red lines of wheals against her creamy pale skin.

"Oh, Sir! Sir…"

"You want to get off, you're gonna work for it." Dean bit down on the nipple he'd been mouthing, drawing a squeal from Lisa and making her toss her head. "Ride me."

Lisa was eager to comply she rose up on her knees and used her hands, her soft delicate hands to guide Dean into her. She sank down on his cock she shuddered, shifted, moaned and rubbed her clit as she bucked forward, testing the fullness. 

"None of that. Hands on my shoulders and get to work." 

Lisa groaned and complied. Her palms pushed into Dean's shoulders and they took the pressure of her weight as she fucked herself on his cock. She bounced up and down and didn’t care that her nails were digging into his skin, that she was dripping sweat on him or that her tangerine pumps were scraping the outsides of his thighs. All that mattered was that she was fucking herself breathless on Dean's cock.

And Dean, he had never been more turned on by a sub before. From on his back he could pretend he was being held down and used, that that the biting of the Lisa's nails and the scratches from her shoes were deliberate. He watched mesmerized as Lisa moved over him and on him and surrounded him with her presence.

It was all about the illusion and it would be until he came. Then it would be about Lisa and giving her what she needed, a little rough and tumble some oral and calling her his good girl before massaging her and rolling out of her bed and into the Impala.

All he had to do was fake it until he felt it…   
Dean would feel it soon enough… 

 

He hoped.


	7. A[nother] Man Alone

**A[nother] Man Alone**

_"I don’t understand? Can't you see how he treats me?" Sam spun on his heel to face Dean, his face grave and determined. And oddly enough Dean had never seen him look more like their father than at that moment. "Besides everything I do turns to shit."_

_"Have faith! He's doing this for you, for us." It was true— to a point. Dean grit his teeth trying to think of a reason to make Sam stay, to make his bold bullheaded little brother stay with the family, because he just knew that wasn't going to cut it._

_"He's doing this for himself." There was blatant anger and a wry amusement in Sam's eye. "It's slow motion suicide, and I'm not going down with him. Neither should you."_

_"I can't leave Dad, he needs us."_

_"What he needs is to grieve and accept that his wife is dead because shit happens. It's been eighteen years, he could have started a business, made a home or even found someone who didn't mind that he came with two kids and a busload of issues! There are other things, other lives than this!_

_“Stay or go. Do what you need to, I'm gone."_

_It cut Dean deep— Sam's pleading… He had been begging Dean to understand to say; yeah, Dad is making some whacked decisions. But Dean honestly couldn’t because He understood his father. Dean understood why they did what they did, why they moved all the time and why his father would never take another collar._

_There was the kicker. They had made damn sure that Sammy didn't know about the Demons that tried to come for him when he was a baby. It was no easy task seeing as how they’d kept coming until Sammy was eleven and Dad had perfected the art of moving from town to town undetected. Sam had never been around or with their mother for any substantial amount of time. Sam didn't know what it was like for her face, her voice or what it felt like to be in her arms to fade until he couldn’t remember them at all. He didn't know. Sam didn't know what it was to devote yourself to someone so willingly, to offer your everything to them only for that person to no longer be there… the threat of it was enough to make Dean shape up and get his shit together and toe the line._

_There was nothing Dean could possibly do or say to make Sam understand and so he had to watch his baby brother walk away from him with no intention of coming back. Dean's heart sank and he could barely breathe, Sammy and everything in the word turning to mist as he walked away._

__

Dean clawed his way out of sleep.

He lay there still and staring at the ceiling of Bobby's guest bedroom. Dean pursed his lips and breathed deeply while he tried to push last month out of his mind. Sometimes it was too much and he felt like he'd never sleep the whole night again. 

To have Sam leave in a huff for Stanford was bad enough, but to turn back to the cabin and realize that his father had abandoned him and the car as well, had been enough to send him into hysterics. Neither of them had answered their phones, gone back to the motel room they’d been sharing or… fuck.

They'd left him high and dry; fifty dollars, and the Impala, 30 miles outside of New York City. Dean was nothing if not resourceful. He fucked, hustled and stole for two weeks before he had enough money for gas and food to make it to Dakota. And now here he was leeching off of Bobby's good will and beer.

When the light from the windows began to filter in from the curtains Dean pushed back the covers and climbed out of bed, preparing to take on the day, work in the scrap yard, and flesh out a case in the stack of papers Bobby had waiting in the kitchen. Dean shaved in the bathroom sink, brushed he teeth and smiled at his reflection, "Fake it ‘til you feel it, man. Fake it 'til you feel it."

[ ](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/lylithj2/23967405/21923/21923_original.jpg)

Dean's insides twisted as he answered his phone. Three months and not a word but here it was the phone call from his father. He knew better than to ask stupid questions like ‘Why did you leave me?', and 'Where are you?'. Dad wouldn't answer and Dean couldn’t stand the thought of that so he acted natural. 

Well as natural as he could under the circumstances. 

"Yeah, Dad." 

"Dean, where are you?"

"Monroe, Ohio."

"You got silver bullets?"

"Yessir."

"Get to Benton, Tennessee. There's a werewolf Caleb needs help with and I told him I'd send you to assist."

"Right, I'll be there in twelve ours or so."

"Good boy." Dean flushed at the praise and ducked his head even though there was no one else in the motel room to see. How was it that those two words were enough to floor him each time? "I gotta go, Deano. Stay safe alright, son?"

Dean swallowed and wished that he could be wherever his father was. He wasn't meant to be alone like this. It hurt and all the company and conversation he had was the Impala’s groan and the random strangers who hadn't the faintest clue about their reality. 

"Yeah Dad, I will."

[ ](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/lylithj2/23967405/21923/21923_original.jpg)

Were wolves were a son-of-a-bitch to gank. They were fast, they were strong and more often than not they were smart, but Dean got the job done and mourned for the little girl who would never see her favorite uncle again.

[ ](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/lylithj2/23967405/21923/21923_original.jpg)

His name was Ethan, he was getting over a bad break up with his Dom of six years and Dean was his night of no commitment rebound fun.

Ethan sucked cock like he was going to die if he didn’t have a dick in his mouth, he was the undisputed champion of cock sucking, the gold medalist in Olympic fellatio. Dean had been blissed out beyond belief after the blowjob, and if that wasn’t enough Ethan had a hunger and recovery time that Dean had never seen before in a man. In that one night Dean and Ethan had had a marathon of fantastic sex. There was fucking, fingering, blowjobs, hand jobs, frottage, floggings and a little knife play. There was no other name for it beyond a feast of sexual delights. 

By the time the sun came up the sheets were ruined and they had both passed out. They woke when the sun was high in the sky and the talk-radio host said that it was 2:00pm. 

Ethan turned his head and smiled at Dean sheepish and goofy. "You want some lunch before you head out?"

[ ](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/lylithj2/23967405/21923/21923_original.jpg)

Usually Dean stayed away from Louisiana. There were Hoo-doo and Voo-Doo shops every third block and fortune tellers around every corner. You never knew who was real and who was a charlatan. There were stupid kids who played with what they had no hope of understanding and angry spirits that were attached to random objects because damn near everyone was cremated. 

Louisiana wasn't his favorite place to work, but it was his favorite place to eat. And this year Dean figured he'd treat himself. Good food, and a good time. He'd head over to Bourbon Street and hit the bars and maybe a Jazz club if he felt so inclined. Bobby had called to wish him a happy birthday and tell Dean he was wiring down some money for him to celebrate with.

But for now Dean was settled on the patio of a little shack of a restaurant snapping the shells of crawdads and sucking out the meat before he moved on to hush puppies with the sun beating down on him.

"You doin' alright, hon? Want anything else?" The sweet-faced waitress asked as she brought him a tall glass of sweet tea and a smile.

"No, I'm good. Thank you." He smiled at her as she took his plate and took a few gulps of the sweet tea.

Dean was staring off out onto the water when his phone started beeping. He pulled it out and glanced at it surprised when the screen showed him a number he didn’t recognize.

_”24? Wow! you're getting old  
Happy birthday Dean.”_

"Sammy, you little bitch," Dean smiled fondly at the phone. He hadn't really expected Sammy to contact him. There had been absolute radio silence since he had left for Stanford. 

Dean gulped down the rest of his tea dropped two twenties on the table and walked down to the grassy strip near the water. It was a good day, he was well fed and might go cruising but he'd wait for Dad's call first. It would suck to miss it because he was chatting up some sub.


	8. Sam and Dean

**Sam and Dean** :

"Okay," Dean licked his lips and braced himself. He never imagined that there would be a time when talking to Sammy would be uncomfortable. Awkward sure, awkward conversations happen—like explaining the birds and the Honey-badgers or why Dad was sleeping in his clothes with his head in the bathtub. "All right. We gotta talk. "

"Uh, the phone?" Sam complained, bitchface 3.0 plastered into place.

"If I'd'a called, would you have picked up?" 

Dean's lips thinned when Sam didn’t answer. He already knew the answer but to have it confirmed like that… That shit hurt. 

"Sam?"

Dean looked past Sam at the girl who had just walked in. Sam made introductions brief as he could and Dean tried to get a good guess of her dynamic. Sam was a Dom, without doubt —but Jessica didn't seem to be a sub. 

Granted if anyone looked at him they wouldn’t think sub either, but he had worked hard to make it that way. Jess held herself like a Dom did and yet you could see that she still deferred to Sam. Maybe she was a switch?

It didn’t matter, she was looking at Dean like he was something she needed to figure out and that just wasn't on. He had to say something… In the end he grinned and flirted a bit.

"Oh, I love the Smurfs. You know, I gotta tell you. You are completely out of my brother's league." He lied, she was lovely; blonde dainty, half dressed with long shapely legs. Sammy deserved the best and clearly she was a prime example of what Sammy's life had to offer.

"Just let me put something on." 

"No, no, no, I wouldn't dream of it. Seriously." Dean just came to talk to Sam, he'd thought Sam would be alone and he didn’t have time to make nice with someone who didn't know what was going on. "Anyway, I gotta borrow your boyfriend here, talk about some private family business. But, uh, nice meeting you. "

"No," Sam stepped closer to Jessica, "No, whatever you want to say, you can say it in front of her."

"Okay." There wasn’t enough time and Dean wasn't going to alienate the one source of help that was close enough to help him. Bobby was out East, Caleb wasn't answering, Pastor Jim wasn't answering and Sammy was right here. "Um. Dad hasn't been home in a few days. "

"So he's working overtime on a Miller Time shift. He'll stumble back in sooner or later."

Dean bowed his head and took a deep breath, he couldn't deal with this right now. And he didn’t like Sam bad mouthing their father at all let alone in front of this slip of a girl who didn't know a damn thing about them and what they did and no right to have that pitying look on her face. "Dad's on a hunting trip. And he hasn't been home in a few days." 

At that Sam gave in and stepped outside with Dean, willing to hear him out

For the second time in his life Dean pulled his little brother out of a fire that was meant to end his ordinary apple pie life. He was trembling with adrenaline and watching through hazy vision to make sure Sammy was still alive, still breathing.

Dean counted his own breaths and the number of firemen and anything else so that he would keep his mind off of the image of a beautiful blonde woman burning and bleeding on the ceiling.

Lucas was a cute little boy with long auburn hair and his mother's rounded face, he didn't speak but communicated well enough. Sam watched Dean and the little boy color and talk (well Dean was talking) and wondered if Dean had always been this good with kids. Sam smiled fondly at the scene and turned to look at the pictures on the mantle.

Sam looked at the framed portrait and smiled at the happy family inside. It was a fairly common pose for family portraits. Peter Barr was seated in the center his wife Andrea was to his left and Lucas was kneeling to the right of his mother, directly in front of his father in the place of a submissive first-born child. 

Come to think of it Dad had kept a similar picture in his wallet. Sam had only caught a glimpse of it on the rare occasion that Dean spoke about their mother.

"Is Dean yours?"

Sam started from the unexpected voice. He turned and smiled at Andrea and shook his head. "No, he's my brother. He's also a Dom."

Andrea blinked, surprised, and ran a hand across her mouth. "Ah, I see. Well don’t I feel stupid. Usually I'm good at finding my own Kind you know?"

Sam shrugged, not sure of what to say.

"You never want to leave a hunt behind. So what aren’t you telling me?" Sam questioned. He watched Dean carefully looking for any tells he could find.

Dean relaxed as much as he could and shrugged, "It's a vengeful spirit. We can leave it to someone else." 

"A vengeful spirit that's killing people —killing Subs. That has to be the reason Dad didn’t handle it. Too much of a danger for him without a partner." Sam wiped a hand down his face and "We can do this in a day, we go in take a look around find out who or what we need to salt and burn and then we go."

"Sam I don’t feel like digging up graves tonight. We did that shit last week, and then I had to burn a doll because people are freaks and actually use their kid's hair to make toys."

"Let's just do the stupid job Dean." Sam shoved the rest of his chicken wrap into his mouth and slid out of the booth.

"Fine, fine." Dean grunted and tossed a twenty on the table.

 

 

 

"Joseph Digialmo," Sam announced as he slid into the passenger's seat of the Impala. "He was stabbed to death with a hot iron poker by his Sub, Richard Pryce for insurance money so that he could move to Miami with his lover. Wow, talk about fucked up."

"This is why one night stands work out so much better." Dean pretended not to notice when Sam gave him a flat look, "So where is he buried?"

"He's not. He was cremated."

"So what do you think is keeping him here? The poker?" Dean grumbled as he pulled up to the driveway of the old house. 

"Let's go see." 

They followed protocol to search the house going from the basement up to the second storey in search of the room where the murder took place. There were cobwebs and mice and so much dust that Dean had to take shallow breaths in order to avoid a sneezing fit. They trailed through the house being as quiet as they could, separating when the came to the second floor. Dean took the rooms on the right and gave Sam with the rooms on the left. 

Dean steeled himself for anything as he walked into the first room. He relaxed when he saw it wasn't a bedroom, but a small office. The walls were lined with books, in the center of the room was a large oak desk, matching chair and a blue rug in front of the fireplace that suddenly roared to life.

"Fuck!" Dean hissed as he glanced around the room trying to see where the ghost was going to materialize. "SAMMY! THE OFFICE!" 

The door slammed shut and the books began to tremble and fly off the walls. The looming figure of the late Mr. Digialmo flickered in and out of existence behind the desk, like something out of one of those cheesy horror movies. It flickered closer and closer until Dean fired off his shotgun.

Sam darted out of the bedroom he was checking when he heard Dean shout his name. He ran down the hall can of salt in one hand his sawed off in the other. The door Dean had gone into was shut and no matter how hard Sam pushed and threw himself at it, it wouldn't open. Salt packed shells wouldn’t do anything to that door either, the impact was negligible and the salt only worked on the spirit itself.

Sam licked his lips and searched the hallway in a frenzy for something to break the door open with, when he didn't see anything suitable Sam took off in a run down the steps in a mad dash for a basement. There had been an axe down there and if he could get his hands on it then he could get to Dean. When he reached the basement Sam snagged the axe off of the wall and took both flights of stairs four at a time.

There was silence behind the door and the lack of noise made Sam's heart catch in his throat. He hefted the axe and swung it down as hard as he could. It only took five strokes before the door was broken up enough that Sam could smash through. Finally in the office Sam leveled the gun at the spirit of Mr. Digialmo. The spirit snarled at him and flickered but Sam paid him no mind. 

[Sam swept the room with his eyes and was startled to see Dean naked as the day he was born kneeling prostrate in front of the fireplace](http://lylithj2.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/495/21729). Digialmo's spectral hand was deep in his body causing damage while keeping Dean utterly still and only vaguely aware of what was happening. 

Sam shot the ghost and winced as Dean screamed loud and painfully, curling onto his side and writhing. His movements brought the stain on the rug to Sam's attention, it was old, it was brown and he’d bet it was Digialmo’s.

Sam pulled the rug up from the floor and tossed it into the high burning fireplace looking on in satisfaction as the son of a bitch burned.

Nothing good ever happened in them, the doctors are rushed, the patients are depressed; trying to figure out how the hell they're going to pay for another day's stay, another medication, another procedure and the whole place smelled like piss, 409 and death.

Dean hated hospitals. And he could always tell when he was waking up in one. It took a few tries to open up his eyes, they were gummy with sleep. Dean's mouth tasted like something had crawled into it and died and his muscles were cramped from being still for so long.

Dean glanced around the room and relaxed once his eyes fell on Sammy sitting on the edge of a large surprisingly plush, yet still horrendously uncomfortable chair. His limbs folded in a way that made him look so much larger than he actually was, it was strange because usually Sam put work into being seen as smaller, non threatening and meek. 

Dean shifted once and the sound of the movement knocked Sam out of his revere. Sam didn’t say a word as he wiped Dean's face with a warm damp washcloth, and helped brush his teeth, rinse his mouth and sit up. Some nurse had jammed a catheter up his dick so there was no need for help of the overly personal kind.

"You wanna clue me in on the reason I'm getting the silent treatment, Sammy?" Dean groused as Sam settled back into his looming-while-sitting pose.

"What's wrong with you? Why're you so pissy?"

"Because I just realized Dad wasn’t the only one lying to me for years." Sam's voice and expression were flat, but his eyes were flinty hard. 

"Who else? Bobby?" Dean offered up hopelessly, his stomach twisting up something fierce.

"No, you." Sam's voice was sharp and accusatory even at a rumbling whisper. "Why wouldn’t you tell me you were a sub Dean?"

"I'm not." The denial was so instant.

"Stop lying!”

Dean tipped his head back and scrubbed at his face with both hands. As if he could wipe away the fact that this conversation was happening. When he pulled his hands away and Sam was still looking at him expectantly Dean licked his lips and tried to make his brother understand. 

"Look, it's not easy being a sub. People, people don’t treat you like they do everyone else. I'm not delicate; I'm not a trophy or a pet. I'm just as strong, just as good as any fucking Dom. You know that. I'm sure as hell not going to call some hyped up asshole Sir!"

"What about that girl you used to date?"

Well shit, right out of left field that one. "What girl?" 

"Back in Arizona… I remember you didn’t talk about her but I saw you sneaking out her window once or twice." Sam scrunched up his face as he tried to remember. When he was a kid it was cute, now it was an easy tell, "She lived down the block.”

"Rhonda… she wasn't some hyped up asshole," Dean cut his eyes over to his brother, "I remember Dad asked about her, you said she was a Dom."

"Leave it alone, Sammy." Dean fumbled for the remote that was attached to the bed. If the TV was on, if it were loud he could pretend he never even heard Sam and this conversation would end.

"I'm guessing Dad doesn’t know. I bet as far as he's concerned he's got two strong Dom's for sons."

 _Low fucking blow_. Dean, tired and frustrated as he is pulls his shit together to level Sam with a look that made even the fiercest men back down. “And you won’t be the one to tell him."

" _You're_ going to?" Sam says in that same aggravatingly prissy and sarcastic tone he used with Dad all throughout his adolescence. 

"No one will. He's got nothing to do with my dynamic", Dean snapped, his patience ragged and all but gone. Anymore and he'd start pulling out IVs and shit to get up and away.

"Why didn’t you tell me?" It's so goddamn unfair that Sam is the one who looks like he's been kicked, looks hurt and betrayed his cat like eyes forsaking their normal appearance to become large and watery …and just fuck. "At least tell me that?"

"We were kids and I was in charge and I needed to be focused and I needed to make you to fall in line." Yeah, that was part of the reason, there was more but this was the only part that had to do with Sam so this was the only part Sam was going to hear about. "You wouldn’t have respected me. Fuck, you don’t even respect Dad—"

Sam cut him off at the knees. "I don’t respect Dad because he's a selfish, self-righteous asshole with control issues. It has got nothing to do with him being a Sub and everything to do with him being him." 

"If that isn't a fucking kicker." Dean rumbled, disbelief written clear across his face.

Sam stood up, eyed his brother and left the room.

Sam watched his brother as the day went by and thought about the past and the present.

He had so many questions. Why did Dean think it was necessary to hide his dynamic from his own family? Did Dean ever actually sub for anyone? Was Dean one of those kinky subs who like to fuck other subs exclusively? Dean used to tell Sam all about his conquests, were all those stories he told true or just fabrications? What did Dean like? Why was he so secretive?

Now if he asked he thought he'd never get a straight answer so he decided to just observe his brother instead and draw his conclusions from what he saw. Sam watched Dean and made notes, mental and written. 

Dean's knife fetish had been something Sam knew about since he was a kid. When they were kids and learning to knife fight, Dean would run his switchblades up and down his fingers and forearms and prick his lips with the tips of the blades. When they came across flee markets with knife stands it was almost just as hard to pull Dean away from those as it was to get him away from the comic stand. 

Dean had a thing about serving food, pouring drinks and not taking a bite until Sam began to eat first. Dean did laundry, when there was a kitchen in the places they stayed Dean was the one who cooked. All of the small things like that added up to Dean taking care of him, even though he was a grown man and could handle all of that himself Dean still did it without Sam asking or without complaint. Dean was all about nurturing and taking care, providing service apparently was part of his dynamic.

The next thing Sam was able to determine was Dean's love of bondage. It was funny really how he found out about that one. They had been arrested for something or another (it wasn’t all that important in the end), and Dean had blushed and refused to look at anyone once the cuffs were on. Sam, having never seen his brother behave so shyly before had wondered what was wrong until he noticed the bulge in the front of Dean’s jeans and the way he tugged at the cuffs every few minutes although he could have gotten out of them at any time he chose. 

Sam peeked into Dean's own kit too. There was the Bullwhip that an artisan had traded Dean for fixing his car six towns back, it was still coiled the same as it had been when he got it. So that wasn't Dean's thing apparently. There were a few soft back scarves that Sam saw as either easy bondage or a blindfold and a long well kept rattan cane with a braided leather handle. 

Dean seemed to be mostly service oriented with some serious pain kinks. Really once you thought about it, it made a lot of sense. Dean had grown up taking care of his family and after all the hunting and fighting, the pain it took to make him feel the high of subspace probably had to be intense.

Sam frowned as he thought about a source paper he had to read back at Stanford. There was this theory that on some level your dynamic was inherited rather developed. If masochism ran in the family then it was a good chance that Dean liked heavy pain like Dad. 

"Sammy, you need to stop thinking so hard, you're gonna get wrinkles."

Sam shook himself out of his stupor and glanced at his brother before turning to look out the window. Dean's dynamic was none of his damn business and he needed to just stop obsessing over it.

Madison was a werewolf. It wasn’t a question but rather a certainty at this point, but even still Sammy wanted to spend the night with her, to be sure. Dean couldn’t begrudge him that, not after that shit with Jessica and the art dealer Sarah. And so Dean kept watch, his eye to the scope of his Cheytac .408 cal. sniper rifle, loaded with silver-plated hollow point bullets.

And yeah it was kind of creepy to watch his brother having sex with some random hot chick but he'd do what he'd have to make sure Sammy got by in one piece. If Dean had to put his own brother down… That thought just wouldn't happen, couldn’t be contemplated or acknowledged.

Dean watched as Sam carefully and diligently used his softest rope and most intricate ties to immobilize and expose Madison in the most enticing ways. Dean's stomach burned with jealousy, it had been year and years since he felt rope glide over his skin, the sensation of being held down and safe— the center of someone's unwavering, undivided attention.

Eventually their coupling was over and the moon was high in the sky, Dean heard the howl and then the gunshots. The silence was the signal to start packing his rifle away and get to Sam as soon as he could.

It was hurricane season. The winds were blowing hard, the rain coming down in sheets and the hail hitting the rooftop and windows like they were bullets.

Sam and Dean were held up in their dim little motel room without much to do. The cable was frizzed out and the TV only showed snowy static. The clock radio played the top forty unreliably and in chunks. To kill time Sam and Dean laid out their arsenal in the hotel room and cleaned, oiled and sharpened every gun and knife they owned before moving on to their own personal kits.

Sam had loosened and recoiled his ropes after checking for any damage or weak spots and now he was seated at the table with a suede brush and leather cleaner working on his floggers. Sam had three that hadn’t been burned up in the fire, a hunter green pair made of suede, and a dark brown heavy flogger made with thick leather tubes for thudding impact. They hadn't been used since Jessica died, but the maintenance kept his hands busy and that's all Sam could ask for. 

Across the table Dean was rubbing linseed oil into his cane with a soft cloth taking care that the oil was absorbed in one area before moving on to the next. After the actual rod was polished and fed Dean wiped some leather cleaner on the rag and rubbed it into the handle. 

Sam eyed the cane and quirked his lips in a barely there smile , “I know you've always had a things for knives but I never figured you as the hardcore pain type."

Dean's eyebrows raised and a smirk played on his lips, "Who says I am?"

"Well if you're toting a cane around…" Sam shrugged, "I’ve only known three people who would even go near a cane and they were all pain sluts."

"So the fuck what?" Dean leaned back in his chair and reached for the mini-fridge, using his finger tips to tug it open and snag two beers from the door. He slid one to Sam and cracked the other open taking a long drink before continuing, "Maybe I just like canes. Doesn’t make me a pain slut."

"The only people I've known who liked canes were pain junkies. And there isn't anything wrong with liking pain."

"It's not the pain that makes a cane great. Everyone thinks it's all about the pain." Dean complained, “You've got to know how to use one, there's technique and finesse to caning. It can be a pleasure or it can be pain. You can even get it somewhere in between if you know how… and besides the stripes look great."

"Shit you really get off on caning don’t you?" Sam teased, and was amazed when Dean's ears and cheeks flushed pink.

"It's none of your business what I'm into."

"Why are you so shy all of the sudden? You never had a problem telling me what you liked before?"

"Before was different."

This hang up Dean had about being a sub had to come from somewhere, Sam just couldn't place it. So instead he shook his head and called Dean out on his inconsistency, "Before you _thought_ it was different. You're still Dean, I'm still Sam. Only difference is that now I know you're a sub."

"Yeah that's a big difference."

"It's only a big difference because you think it's one. I don’t want to treat you differently, but how can I not when you act differently?"

Dean gave Sam a dirty look and bolted the rest of his beer. Sam responded with a shrug and Dean huffed out a long breath and gave in.”“Yeah… I can get off on stripes if there's enough of a work up. Rhonda was the one who gave this cane to me. We were just kids but she was great with that damn thing. She was all about canes and rope. She made me love it in the end." 

"How? Jess wouldn’t let me near her with one of those things."

Dean tossed the beer can into the trash can and leaned back in his chair again. He balanced on the back legs and let his lips twist as he tried to remember. "Well... first she showed me how it was used. Taught me how to use it myself so I could cane her— she had a serious masochistic streak. We had to go up for swats for cutting class one time and she was so turned on…" Dean trailed of a fond smile on his face. "But yeah, after I was reasonably sure I wouldn’t die if she hit me with it she tied me up so I couldn’t move and we did everything else except for use that damn cane."

Sam frowned, not sure if he heard right.

"Yeah, I know." Dean laughed and shrugged, he couldn’t explain her logic either. "Like at two months in I was so curious I asked her for it. She started off light with a rhythmic caning. She used to tap out Ride the Lightning on my back, ass and thighs. It went like that for a while, every time we played after that she'd make her strikes a bit harder and my tolerance grew and so did the turn on factor for me. Eventually she had me taking stripes with no problem.

“She was a good Dom, skilled even when we were both out the gate, stumbling around and trying to figure shit out. Wonder what ever happened to her…"

There was a companionable silence in the room as Dean reminisced and Sam finished evening out the tails of his suede floggers.

"Dean, will you teach me how to use a cane?" Sam asked out of the blue.

"What? Do you even know, what-?"

"You said Rhonda taught you, and you take good care of your cane so I figure you know what you're doing." Sam shrugged and snapped the book he'd been reading closed.

"Why the hell not, I'm getting stir crazy anyway." Dean, who had been lounging on the bed, sat up and pulled his T-shirt off. It was black and would show chalk lines well. "Grind up some chalk and rub it onto the cane, not the handle though." 

"Okay."

Sam did as Dean asked as Dean stuffed his shirt with a spare pillow. "Alright, so here's the thing. It's a cane not a baseball bat. It's a cane, not a hammer. It's a cane, not—"

"Okay I get it!"

"Really? Because you'd be surprised by how many people don't." Dean let the comment stand alone before he stepped behind Sam and adjusted his stance. Dean made sure Sam's feet were spread a shoulder width a part, that his right foot was forward and his arm was taught. "Okay, you measure up your strike and you aim don’t over extend you'll break the cane and cause wrap marks. Then you move your upper body in one smooth motion —not your arm but your whole torso. Don’t stop mid stroke, follow through."

It took nearly an hour and a lot of Dean repositioning Sam's body before he got the hang of it and was able to land the strikes one under the other on the pillow. When one side of the pillow was marked up with chalk Dean flipped it over drew a square on it and replaced it. "Only hit within the square. You need to learn to aim."

Sam, as with anything, picked up the lesson quickly, all but two strokes had landed in the box that Dean drew and the two strays were less than an inch away from the edge of the box.

"Good, now you get a live test subject, because a pillow doesn't mean jack shit if you can't aim right." Dean tossed the pillow onto the bed and stood at the table, hands braced on the surface, legs shoulder width apart.

"Ah, you sure about this Dean?" Sam asked. Dean just looked over his shoulder, cocky smirk in place. "Alright then."

Sam moved into the stance Dean had drilled into him. His right foot forward, legs spread and arm tight as he tapped Dean's ass with the cane lining up his strokes and making sure the tip of the cane wasn't too far out. Sam pulled back and swung, pivoting his body and landing the strike.

"Good form but you can hit harder, put your hips in to it." The cane whistled through the air and landed with a sharp crack and a sharper sting. Dean rolled his shoulders and nodded. Sam obliged, following form and landing his strikes as precisely as he's able to until the back of Dean's jeans are covered in chalk and Dean tells him to stop. "Good, good, you've got it now."

"You alright?" Sam reached out putting a hand between his brother' shoulder blades. 

Dean rolled his shoulders once more and shrugged off Sam's hand. "I'm fine, it's just been a while, but I'm fine." 

Sam frowned and looked Dean over carefully, his breathing was fast, but nothing dangerous, his eyes were glassy, his face flushed and, oh… well that explained it. Sam looked away from the sight of Dean's cock pushing up against his jeans.

"I'mma go shower," Dean grunted and left for the bathroom.

When Dean came out half an hour later naked as the day he was born Sam pretended not to notice the neat set of red stripes his brother was sporting right across his ass.

They were leaving Wisconsin, the Striga dead as a doornail, Asher back in good health and Michael aware of the things that lurk in the dark. Dean sat in the passenger's seat, silent even though the radio was blaring Black Sabbath. The whole situation was grating on him. Having to use a kid as bait, feeling like he was the reason the Striga got away thirteen years ago and opening Michael's eyes to the real horrors of the world were all getting to him.

Sam watched Dean from the corner of his eye and wished he could do something to make him feel at least a little better. It wasn’t Dean's fault that the Striga got away, no matter what Dad said all those years ago. It wasn’t fair to leave a twelve year old alone and responsible for his eight year old sibling. 

Sam remembered more than he let on. They were there locked up in that room for a little over two weeks. Dad was barely home, there wasn't enough food and there was only so much TV anyone could watch before they were clawing at the walls to get out. Dean had gone out to get a soda and play a game of pinball at the machines in the vending area, not twenty feet from the motel room door and it had haunted him ever since.

Dean had been the obedient son, Sam remembers that too. Dean didn't buck orders lightly, preferring to follow the instructions their father gave no matter the temptation or the teasing. Dean always hungered for the hard earned praise that came when Dad deigned to let him know that he did well. Dean lived to make Dad proud and take care of Sam despite the fact that he was a grown man who could take care of himself. Dean did all he could for them with a focus and determination that Sam once thought was borderline obsessive.

But it made sense now, how Dean strived for praise and acknowledgement. Usually children were praised often and with little reserve by parents. Submissive children were praised even more so, learning that their caring and focus was a special part of their nature. 

Dean had grown up holding that part of himself private, and somehow mentally twisting his own submissiveness until he thought that it was something to be ashamed of when in all actuality his submission was to be prized and indulged. 

Had someone ever prized it? Appreciated it?

"Dean, you ever been collared?" Sam asked during a particularly long guitar solo.

Sam watched from the corner of his eye as Dean fingered his bracelets and shrugged. "No, I'm not gonna let some control freak tell me I can't hunt. I don’t need a collar, I don’t want one either."

It's funny how not seeing someone for years makes seeing them again such an emotional moment. When John had stepped out of his car Dean was scrabbling at the door to get out and to their father as fast as he could. Sam watched Dean all but fall into their father's arms, smiling and excited to see a man who had left him to his own devices with out a word four years ago.

Sam got out of the car at a more sedate pace to give his greetings and accept a hug from his father. The man pissed him off, no doubt, but that didn't mean Sam didn't love his father.

"I'm sorry about your girl, Sammy." John murmured into his ear before they parted from the hug. 

"Thanks Dad."

"You've always been picky you know. Champagne taste on a beer budget…" John smirked wryly, the dimples Sam inherited on display. "She must have been something special."

"She was, she really was." Sam felt the aching pain in his chest that flared up when ever he thought about Jess and leaned back against the truck. If this is what it would always feel like no wonder Dad was the way he was. "I had a collar ready for her and everything. I was going to ask her after graduation."

"I didn't know her but I'm sure she would have been proud to wear your collar." John smiled soft and genuine, his fingers finding their way to his own collar. "There is no higher praise, no greater honor then to have your Dom fasten a collar around your neck." 

Sam glanced at Dean, the conversation from a few days ago brought to the forefront of his mind. 

Dean's lips thinned, irritation clear in the set of his shoulders and the sternness of his jaw."Not every sub dreams of a collar though, right dad?"

"Everyone wants their happily ever after, Dean. For some it's that white picket fence, for others it's until death do we part… for another it might be a collar. It's something you can't understand until… it's different for subs".

Sam winced and Dean nodded towards the woods on the side of the road, the universal, I'm going to take a leak broadcast for those who live on the road.

Dean leaned against a tree, arms crossed and forehead pressed against the bark. His shoulders were tense and his eyes closed as he took long measured breaths.

"What's you happily ever after, Dean?" 

"Saving people, hunting things…"

Sam rolled his eyes, "That's your now, not your ever after." 

"Why can't it be my ever after too?" Dean asked, olive green eyes open and looking straight at Sam.

"Is that what you want?"

Dean pulled away from the tree, standing under his own power once more. His shoulders were square, his back was straight and his hands jammed into his pockets. Dean was strong, capable and devoted to his cause. "I want to hunt, I want to do good things and save people. I just… I just don’t want to do it alone."

Sam nodded his understanding and followed his Dean back to where they’d left the car, their father and Dean's Dominant persona.

**Author's Note:**

> There will eventually be a second part to this story, once i get my act together and plot it out so that it can tackle the second part of the prompter's request.
> 
> Feed back is very much appreciated :)
> 
> ALso, please be sure to leave love for Ltlithj2 at her  
> http://lylithj2.livejournal.com/49811.html


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